Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Michelle Williams, Elizabeth McGovern, former New Zealand PM Helen Clark on Jacinda Ardern

Episode Date: January 21, 2023

The award-winning actor Michelle Williams discusses her new role in Steven Spielberg's semi-autobiographical film, The Fabelmans. She plays Mitzi, a concert pianist who’s put her artistic ambition aside to raise a family, and is struggling to play a supporting role to her computer genius husband. Michelle explains why she was attracted to the role, and how her work in Dawson's Creek as a teenager set her up for Hollywood success. On Thursday, the New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced her shock resignation. We discuss with BBC Diplomatic Correspondent James Lansdale, former Prime Minister Helen Clark and the political scientist Lara Greaves from Auckland University.Wendy Warrington is an NHS nurse and midwife who has been giving medical help and support to women and children in Ukraine since March last year. She tells us about the impact of the war on maternity services in the country. Afghan police have confirmed that a former Afghan MP and her bodyguard have been shot dead at her home in the capital Kabul. Mursal Nabizada was one of nine out of 69 female MPs who chose to stay in the country after the Taliban returned to power. We speak to Fawzia Koofi, Afghanistan's First Woman Deputy Speaker of Parliament.The Oscar-nominated actor and Downton Abbey star Elizabeth McGovern shares her experience of playing Martha in a new production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?‘Lucky girl syndrome’ is a new trend taking over TikTok with over 80 million views of the hashtag. The journalist Róisín Lanigan from i-D magazine and psychologist Catherine Hallissey discuss whether it’s just a new take on positive thinking, and whether there is any psychological basis for it.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Lucy Wai Editor: Lucinda Montefiore

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.

Hello and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour with me, Anita Rani. This is where we bring you the best bits from the week just gone. And have we got a star-studded line-up for you today. Coming up, the actor Elizabeth McGovern tells us about her new theatre role and reflects on the success of Downton Abbey in which she played the Countess Cora Crawley. That was a script that I liked, but my feeling was, oh, my mum and I will both like this. And it turned out that it was my mum and I and, like, the rest of the world.

It was, you know, really a shock. As Jacinda Ardern announces her retirement, we hear from New Zealand's former Prime Minister, Helen Clark, about her legacy. And have you heard of Lucky Girl Syndrome? Stay tuned to hear more about the new positive thinking trend taking over TikTok. But first, the Hollywood actor Michelle Williams began her career aged 16 on the TV drama Dawson's Creek. Now at 42, she's playing a version of Steven Spielberg's mum in his semi-autobiographical

new film, The Fablemans. Mitzi Fableman is a concert pianist who's put her artistic ambition aside to raise a family and is struggling to play a supporting role to her computer genius husband. But the crucial relationship portrayed in the movie is the one between Mitzi and her son, Sam. Here she is, suggesting to him a way he can process a highly realistic train crash scene he saw at the cinema. Sammy, we're going to use Daddy's camera to film it. Only crash the train once, okay? Then after we get the film developed, you can watch it crash over and over till it's not so scary anymore. And your real train won't ever get broken. One more thing, Dolly.

Let's not tell your father. It'll be our secret movie, just yours and mine. Okay? Okay. Well, I sat down with Michelle Williams in a London hotel on Thursday, and we got right into it. Michelle, thank you so much for your time, and welcome to Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for having me. What an honor.

You get to play some, you have got to play some iconic women. Marilyn Monroe, Gwen Verdon. I'm going to put Jen from Dawson's Creek in there because she's an icon in my eyes. Oh, thank you. Thank you for calling it back all the way to Jen Lindley. She'd be so happy to be in the company of Gwen Vernon and Marilyn Monroe. She meant a lot to a lot of young women in that era. But where does being asked to play Steven Spielberg's mom come into that lineup? You know, it's icing on a cake I can't believe I've gotten to eat. It's funny because, you know, she definitely has a relationship to those other women that you're naming. I mean, one, I always say, like, I could never have played all of these women

without first having played Jen Lindley. You know, that was really, it's kind of an incredible training ground to spend six and a half years on a show like that. You learn so much about the very technical side of acting, which is how to hit a mark, how to learn a lot of dialogue and then let it go so that you can learn more the next day. It also just taught me how to be a professional person. I was very young when that show started.

I was 16 years old and I had to get myself to work. I had to stay healthy. I had to figure out how to make dinner for myself. I had to figure out doctor's checkups and, you know, just really how to balance a professional life and a personal life. And I got to do that on this show. I got very deep practice, six and a half years. So you can see the correlation to this point today. I really do. I mean, I think that, you know, each job, whatever your last job was, for me, it always recalls the first job because you're always looking at the distance that you've traveled. And because being an actor, you're constantly getting new work. So it's always a stimulating, unknown environment. And it always, to me, just recalls my beginning. And I look at that line and I see how far I've

traveled. And is this the ultimate stamp of approval to be asked by Steven Spielberg to play his mom? Because he had his eye on you from 2010 when you were in Blue Valentine. He clocked you then. It really is something. I still, I don't know if I'll ever get over it. I'm clearly not over it because I haven't worked since I made this movie. I did have my third child, so I was busy making a human. But I haven't taken on another film job. This experience was very special to me because it was so special to him.

And also because we had such an incredible time together. I've never had such abundant joy on a set before. I've never enjoyed myself so much while working so hard and at such an extreme level. Because, you know, for everybody, for the people behind the camera, for costumes, for hair, for makeup, when you're working for Steven Spielberg, you feel how momentous that is because you're really taking a part in film history. You will be in his canon forever. So the bar is so high and you're just jumping to reach it every day. And at the same time, experiencing such profound joy to be at work.

So I never wanted it to end. And I think somehow by not taking another job, I'm keeping part of myself still attached to that experience. Well, you were amazing, outstanding playing Mitzi, who is the mother, the character who is the mother of Sam. What's the special bond between the two of them? Describe their relationship. I would say that it's rooted in play, and it's rooted in imagination, and it's rooted in believing that you don't have to grow up entirely to become an adult, that you can just keep a toe in this very fertile ground of childhood in a land where everything is possible before people start telling you how you have to behave, how you have to live, what kind of order you have to impose on your life. I think that his mother defied all of that. And a long time ago, by the way, like what a modern soul she was.

Mitzi is a musician. She's a very accomplished piano player. She's creative. She's artistic. We've said she's free spirited and she's actively encouraging his art. She wants him to pursue filmmaking, which is his passion. His dad is scientific and he calls it his hobby. And she sort of says to him, don't call him, don't call it his hobby.

You know, let him pursue this. There's a conflict between the parents. Right. Between the, as she says later in this house, it's art or it's science. Yeah. art or it's science yeah and look at what that combination that tension made is this man steven spielberg who you know has shaped the way a country uh countries a planet sees film yeah and it was his mother that encouraged it yeah it was his mother that encouraged it but you know his father also brought in this like technical prowess that is very much a part of Stephen's filmmaking.

Yeah. And his dad was a genius. His dad was a genius. And, and his mother was the creative force behind it. She's also this pivotal character in the film. Everybody looks to her, the children, the two men, the husband and the best friend, Benny, who she eventually, you know, has to leave the husband to be with, because she makes that choice for herself. But her emotions impact everybody else. They look to her. If she's happy, everyone's happy. When she's sad, everyone's sad. She's like the sunshine. Yeah.

And when it's behind a cloud, you feel the difference. What's interesting in the film as well is watching this, you said that she's a really modern soul. I just wonder how many of these women were modern souls in 1960s, choices of a limited housewife, you know, that those are the lives that they had to live. And actually they wanted freedom, but they had to make sacrifices. But they had to make sacrifices. But they had to make sacrifices.

And for, you know, I always thought about her. She, when she decided to not pursue her dream of becoming a concert pianist, she experienced a living death. She let a part of herself go because she, because her mother, her own mother wanted her to make a safer choice, have a family, get married. And so she experienced a kind of living death. And so when she's confronted with this, with a love for two people, I always thought she knows what it feels like to go against her nature. She did that once and she just can't do it again. Yeah, incredibly brave choice to make. The film is a love letter to his parents,

but particularly to his mum. There is so much humanity in that character. You know, if it was just a story being told elsewhere of a woman who's married with four children in the 60s and then she leaves the husband for the best friend, I think it might have been told very differently had it not been through the eyes of the child who watched it happen. I think so too. What moved me so much is there's no, I don't feel like anyone, no one is judging her for this. And no one is punishing her for this. Nothing bad happens to her.

In fact, her life flourishes as her life did. And in fact, her children's lives flourish as in fact her children's lives did. Because she, I think, because she lived so honestly and so in tune with her own nature, I think it liberated her children to do the same thing. And I think that's what grew this great love for her is because she passively gave them the gift of self-actualization. You say, you know, it is amazing to watch her liberate herself and not be punished.

And we see that in the film, but we also see the conflict of the sacrifices she's made to keep this family unit together and the expectation that she should stay in this marriage because on the face of it, there's nothing wrong, right? Other than that she's just deeply unhappy and she doesn't want to be there. kind of love. I think that there is deep love between Mitzi and Bert, between Stephen's real parents, and actually a kind of love that continued after she left and married the best friend. Stephen's father also remarried, but then there was a moment in their lives when they found themselves, both of their partners had passed, and they were together again in their much older age so it's not that the love in fact that's i think what was so painful about it that's certainly what felt so painful in filming the divorce scene was that there's still so much love between these two people but it isn't the right kind of love to make a marriage on. And she knew that and she couldn't betray herself.

But the amount of courage it takes to do that, even now, never mind in the 60s. Right, even now. Even now, it says a lot about her personality and just how much of a firecracker she was. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? I know. The premier, Steven Spielberg, came on stage and says, you're about to watch $40 million worth of therapy. What was it like being on set? Just how emotional was it being with a director who is that vulnerable? Oh.

It was really a thing to behold. I mean, it was just watching somebody unzip their heart and ask you to come inside. Yeah. It was a beautiful thing to witness. The very gracious Michelle Williams there. And The Fablemans is out in cinemas next Friday from the 27th of January, and it is a real joy.

Now to New Zealand, where the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, on Thursday made a shock announcement that she had no more in the tank to continue leading the country and would step down no later than early February and not seek re-election. Here's what she said announcing her resignation. So today I'm announcing that I will not be seeking re-election. And that my term as Prime Minister will conclude no later than the 7th of February.

I know what this job takes and I know that I no longer have enough in the tank to do it justice. It's that simple. After going on six years of some big challenges, I am human. Politicians are human. We give all that we can for as long as we can.

And then it's time. And for me, it's time. Well, to hear more about this decision and her legacy, I spoke to the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, who joined me from Davos. Helen was the Prime Minister from 1999 to 2008 and was the first woman to become Prime Minister following a general election

and the second woman to serve as PM. I began by asking her how surprised she was to hear of Jacinda's resignation. Well, I was very sad to hear it. If you ask me, was I surprised? Not really. I've been very acutely aware of the incredible pressure Jacinda's been under for the five and a half years she's been leader. There's been a lot of crises, not only

COVID. And I think as she very honestly said today, I just don't have enough gas in the tank to keep doing it. That's a brave thing to say, a brave decision to make, but she's made it. You've said she faced a level of hatred that's unprecedented. What did you mean by that? So it's always tough at the top, right? I was prime minister for nine years. There were a lot of unpleasant people, but they didn't have social media as an outlet for it then. I think increasingly there's been communities of hate built on social media, the trolling, the abuse, the anonymous vitriol. Add to that clickbait, the 24-7 news cycle. It gets very, very tough.

Now, in the context of COVID, it's given the way for a whole set of communities from QAnon to anti-vax to really step up the trio. And I think a lot of that has been directed at Jacinda and it's taken its toll. It really does say a lot about the job when you announced that you've got nothing left in the tank at 42. Correct. Correct. Correct. I mean, at 42, it's prime of career. She came in at 37. She's given it her very best shot. And I think her legacy is significant. But she says, I'm not the person to take it forward. And that's a brave decision.

Now, as a former prime minister yourself, what did you make of her tenure as PM over the last five and a half years? Well, firstly, she faced challenges I never had to face. Never had anything like a global pandemic and throwing the country into lockdown and just taking extraordinary measures and trying to take people with you, which for the best part of the first year, she did. Then social consensus in New Zealand started to fray as everywhere

and the going got a lot tougher. But I can say as someone in her 70s who looks after a father who's almost 101 years old, we are grateful for the life-saving measures that the New Zealand government put in place, which saved the lives of a lot of people. So I'm very grateful for that. I also see the long list of social and other initiatives

that Jacinda's government spearheaded, and generally I think sheinda's government spearheaded. And generally, I think she's done a good job. What's she like as a person? She is as she appears. She's a kind person. She has empathy. I think that helped enormously through that first phase of COVID. But the PM empathised.

She was able to communicate well. She based the decisions on science and evidence she really did a stellar job what you see is what you get with Jacinda Yeah, in her resignation speech she said that she hopes that I leave New Zealand with a belief that you can be kind but strong

empathetic but decisive, optimistic but focused, that you can be your own kind of leader they were her qualities, weren't they? Absolutely. She did it her way and she managed to keep that kindness, scarcely a crossword in five and a half years under great pressure. It takes some doing in my experience.

I had a lot more crosswords than Jacinda's ever had. What do you think her legacy will be? The legacy will be that she as a young woman in her mid-30s was able to go to the very top. She coped with a new baby in her first year as Prime Minister. She coped in the intense media age that we live in. I think she inspired young women and girls all over the world. That's what I hear. She was a young graduate working in my back office when I was Prime Minister. We all saw her potential,

and I was so thrilled when she got to the top, and I'm very sad to see her go. That was the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark. And to find out more about the international context of her resignation, I spoke to James Landale, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent, and I asked him whether he'd ever met her in person. I wouldn't say I've met her personally,

but I've come across her a lot of times at political events, summits, particularly the Commonwealth Heads of Government Summit here in London in 2018, when she cut a very striking figure. She was pregnant at the time, you know, in a sea of, you know, Commonwealth leaders. She stood out, you know, wearing her national dress, but also being, you know, being pretty pregnant at the time. And the crucial thing to understand about her is her timing. She came to office in 2017 at the time when Donald Trump came to power. And at a time when many governments around the world were, you know, there were more strong sort of nationalistic, populistic political trends. She stuck out as a counter to that she was seen as a sort of not just a female icon,

but a progressive icon. At that time, you know, she came to power talking about women's rights about child, you know, education, about lots of social issues. So when she came to power, she had that sort of freshness. And so, but that changed over time, and she became more popular at home as the economy, you know, became tougher as she was criticised for, you know, the way she was handling crime. Her reputation was better abroad than it was domestically. What was her reputation on the world stage? She was respected.

She was respected for the way she handled some really tough times. You know, she was really firm with the pandemic at a time when a lot of other governments were wobbling. They weren't sure what to do. Do we, you know, and she went in very hard, very early, keeping it very, very tight. And as a result, the death rate in New Zealand was much lower than many other countries. She was also hugely respected for the way she handled the Christchurch terrorist attack in 2019 when 51 people were gunned down at a mosque.

You know, her empathy, her swift decision making in tightening gun laws. You know, there are a lot of governments who thought, oh, yeah, that's pretty good. Her departure follows Angela Merkel last year. Are we going to see a shift to more men in suits again? I don't think so. I mean, there are a lot of, you know, very, very dynamic female heads of government and foreign ministers out there. You know, you've got a prime minister in Finland, in Estonia, Italy, Lithuania, Denmark. You've got very powerful foreign secretaries in Canada, in Germany, you know, who are women, you know, who are people who are of the same generation, or maybe even some of them are even younger than Jacinda Ardern.

You know, they're still there. They're still very much on the world stage. We're going to see them, you know, at Ramstein in Germany tomorrow when they're talking about arms to Ukraine. We're going to see them at all the big summits later this year. And her resignation, in a way,

has just done it in her own way, in a very different way. I just wonder, in a more broader context, how rare is it for political leaders to resign when they're at the top? In such a gracious fashion as well, to say, you know, I've got nothing. I'm being so honest. I've got nothing left in the tank. Politicians do resign occasionally when there's not a general election.

Sometimes it's for illness. I'm thinking Harold Wilson in the UK. You know, there are other politicians, you know, who do it unexpectedly. The closest parallel I can think of is Estelle Morris, Labour Education Secretary 2002. You know, one of Tony Blair's flagship departments. And she stood down saying, look, very honestly, there's something I'm great at, but I'm not good at managing a massive, complicated government department. And I'm not so great on the media. So I'm going to stand down. And it was surprising then. And, you know, it's's 20 years ago I can't think of another parallel since then. That was James Landale. Now we know that the resignation has caused ripples throughout the wider world but

what was the reaction at home in New Zealand? I spoke to Lara Greaves a political scientist at the University of Auckland. Yes I think New Zealanders are quite shocked and quite surprised. Ardern actually quite recently said that she was intending on standing in the 2023 election because there's been so much talk about her going away to some kind of international role. She felt the need to really clearly state last year that she was definitely going to run. So I think we're all quite shocked and surprised at this resignation. Is there a mismatch between her international perception and her domestic one? What do we not know? There's definitely a mismatch. So still, when we travel internationally,

or we talk to our political science colleagues around the world, people view Ardern incredibly favourably. And in the New Zealand context, the shine's really kind of worn off in a way. So 2017 was quite a close election where Ardern came to become Prime Minister. 2020 was the COVID election where her world-leading COVID response really catapulted their result. Their result was a huge, record-breaking win. And then now in 2022, 2023,

their polling numbers have come back down to reality, more return to 2017 levels. Because there have been all of those like previously mentioned issues around the economy and the cost of living, but also things around crime and just a whole host of issues, domestic issues and domestic realities.

So is this a personal reason for resignation or a political one, do you think? There's so many debates at the moment about the extent to which it's personal versus political. Of course, like part of not having enough in the tank is going to relate to the fact that it will be a really hard election in 2023 for the Labour Party. The National Party have gone through that process of renewal, our right wing party, and they're looking like they're going to win in the polls. Of course, that would be a really hard

election. It's harder to go into a close election as the leader. So I mean, that's quite an obvious statement. But in a way, I think that a lot of people can sympathise with her position and her situation. A lot of people were very tired or have been really tired from COVID and the COVID crisis. And so imagine leading a country through that. I think it's a relatable reason to be stepping down, although there will be some political element.

So how long do you think she'll rest for? When will she be back on the international stage? Well, I think we're expecting an international role from her at some point. And I mean, she's 42 years old. What do you do? You've got another 25, 30 years of work ahead of you. I mean, you spoke to Helen Clark, who, you know, is still working in her 70s. What do you do after you're prime minister of a country and that you're known internationally? It's got to be some kind of international role, but it will be after a respectful amount of rest time. And I'm sure she actually does need some kind of rest time as well. That was Lara Greaves. And before that, you heard from the former prime minister of New Zealand,

Helen Clark, and the BBC's James Landale. Now, earlier this week, Ukraine's first lady, Elena Zelenska, told CNN that women are bearing the brunt of the war with Russia when it comes to taking care of their families and children. The war has been going on since February last year, and our next guest has seen firsthand how the invasion is impacting women. Wendy Warrington is a nurse and midwife from Greater Manchester who decided to travel to the Polish border last March. She's since regularly been to Ukraine to help out.

Jessica Crichton spoke to Wendy earlier this week and began by asking her what compelled her to volunteer. So what happened when the war broke out? I was actually away at the time, but we run the Polish social centre in Bury. I'd been heavily involved And they started a collection. And at that point, I decided that because I speak Polish, that maybe I could go over and offer some help.

So that was the first point. The other was I was hearing about all the queues and seeing the photos and the news of all these women, children, families, older people and babies standing in freezing conditions in the queues waiting to cross the border. And then there was news of babies that were actually freezing. And I just felt that I really needed to just go and see if I could offer some support to these women as they crossed over the border. The other reason is that my family, from my mother's side, my grandfather was in Auschwitz, my great-grandmother perished there,

and what resonated with me was what my family went through, and this kind of had that effect on me that this is what was happening here in Ukraine. Did you have any concerns because you would have seen the pictures like we all did of bombings, shellings and the kind of destruction that was happening. Did you or your family have any concerns about you traveling over there in terms of your safety? At the time I didn't have any concerns because my plan was to work over on the Polish side of the border and not cross into Ukraine. And I did promise my family that I wouldn't cross into Ukraine. However, once I reached Poland and I'd been working in the humanitarian center in Przemysl, I became friends with a Polish paramedic who'd been volunteering over there. And he asked me to cross over the border.

We went to deliver an ambulance that was being taken to Mariupol. And then we started to deliver aid to Lviv Children's Hospital. And then we started to do evacuations and doing medical support. So we were bringing out children and adults with various conditions, and we were bringing them back over the border, either to hospitals into Poland where they'd been accepted, or we'd take them to the medical train where they'd be transported further, either abroad or into Poland. The only issue is that I didn't tell my family at the time that I was doing this because I didn't

want to um upset them however when I went to do one um evacuation when the siren started to go off um I decided that I better tell my husband um where I was because if anything did happen and I did disappear he'd think that I was in Poland so I thought I better um tell him what I was up to and And what was the reaction? He wasn't very happy, to be fair. They were quite upset, the fact that I hadn't told them. But I didn't want to unsettle them. And I actually did feel that where I was going,

that I was as safe as I possibly could be. I mean, you never know what might happen, but they accepted that this is what I wanted to do. And so after that, when I said I was going to go further into Ukraine, which I did, they, while they didn't particularly like it very much, they accepted that what I was doing is what I wanted to do or what I felt I needed to do. And now, as you say, you travel out to Ukraine regularly to help women and children. What sort of issues are you seeing? What health problems and situations are you seeing? So I've just returned on Saturday. I've been there. I'd been there for a week. It was quite intensive. What we are seeing now is in the refugee centres.

So for the people that have fled from the east to have moved up to the west that don't want to cross over the border into Poland, they are in various refugee centres around the Lviv area. And what we are seeing is that the children that are born, the babies, are either born prematurely, so a few weeks earlier than their expected date. They are smaller than what we would expect. And we're also seeing in the children that the children are suffering heavily from infections, coughs, colds, and that they are underweight

and what we would actually classify as malnourished. You would have seen the comments recently from the First Lady of Ukraine, Ulaena Zelenska, and she said that women are bearing the brunt of this war. How much do you agree with that? I would agree with what Ulaena Zelenska is saying because I've seen it firsthand. In terms of the women who were fleeing from the east of Ukraine. They would be coming with their aunts, grandmas, sisters, cousins, children, and they would be traveling over 30 hours sometimes crammed into a train trying to get over that border and to get

onto some further help. And the stress that they endured was clearly visible it was etched in the faces that's why when we greeted them into the centre the first thing that you know that I would do is just sit down and chat to them and just reassure them the ones that were pregnant admitted that they actually didn't give any thought to their unborn at that time because they were so busy dealing with everything else that was happening. So for me to just do the very basics of antenatal care and for them just to listen in and hear their baby's heartbeat with the donated Dopplers that I got, you could actually visibly see the stress easing from the faces and then the tears would come and then the smiles but we also

see that women are coming across the border delivering the children and the family members to either go on further to other countries or further into Poland or to other family members that come from abroad to receive them and then they were crossing back over the border to go and support the war effort if you will in Ukraine so going back to the works working as nurses and going back and sewing making camouflage nets and also caring for elderly relatives. One woman that I met actually just on my last trip she was telling me that she would love to leave she's got an 18 year old son who's leave. She's got an 18-year-old son who's got disability. She's got two grown-up daughters.

But she has an 18-year-old mother who has said that she's not going to leave. So she said she's got no option, but she has to stay because she won't leave her mother. And what the women really feel that they need to do is there to be able to support either elderly relatives, but also to support the war effort. How much has all of this impacted you, Wendy? The thing is, for me, is that I feel that I'm quite a strong person and I've got resilience. I've also got good support. I did spend a lot of time over in Ukraine. Last year, I spent more time in Poland and Ukraine than I actually did in the UK. Coming back now and reflecting, having some time out,

has made me realise that I did try to spread myself a little too thinly. So what I was doing was going to deliver humanitarian aid into areas that had been heavily hit, that had been previously occupied. And I didn't realise how close to risk that I actually was, how close to the Russian border I was. But that's my way of coping with it is what I don't know doesn't hurt me so I just carry on with what I'm doing and for now that's the what I've decided to do is is that what we want to set up is some primary care clinics and to have continuity

because that lack of continuity is an issue and there is a lot of health problems that we've seen within the refugee centres so we want to set up something that is sustainable. Now, of course, the work that you're doing, Wendy, is absolutely incredible. But I do hope you are taking time out to look after yourself. What advice would you give to others who want to maybe go over to Ukraine and help out as well? The thing is, is that I've come across a lot of volunteers and everybody's got big hearts and people want to help however some that i've come across um are running away or escaping from their issues at home so it could be a failed relationship it could be um that there has been um marital breakdown and there's personal issues financial issues and they feel that they want to come over to the ukraine to help

and while that's admirable, but what that does is bring those certain problems. And if you haven't dealt with what you're dealing with at home, then how can you help the people that are over there? So what you need to do is make sure that you've got enough finances in place to support yourself, that you know how to get back, that you can practice some self-care and know when there is to take some time out.

Because while the volunteers continue, and I have worked there harder than I have ever worked in my life, I'm talking 18 to 20 hour days, it does take its toll, that you need to have a certain amount of resilience and good support networks and know when you need to look after yourself and take some time out. That was the midwife and nurse Wendy Warrington speaking to Jess. Still to come on the programme, the actor Elizabeth McGovern reveals how she relates to the character of Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

And working from home or the new hybrid working week may have become the new norm for many of us in the paid workforce, for now at least, but how does this affect the sharing of daily chores done by men and women at home? Next week, we want to discuss how things are in your household and whether you think things have changed or not since COVID. So who does the most chores in your home? How much has this changed since the pandemic?

We want to hear your experiences. So please get in touch, email the programme. If you'd like to join us on air, leave us a mobile number too, and we'll call you back and we will try and get as many of you on the programme as possible. And remember that you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via the Woman's Hour website. Now, you may have heard the news earlier this week that a former Afghan MP and her bodyguard have been shot dead at her home in the capital, Kabul. Musa Nabizadeh was one of nine out of 69 female MPs who initially chose to stay in the country after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

Former colleagues praised Ms. Nabizadeh as a fearless champion for Afghanistan. Since the Taliban returned to power, women have been removed from nearly all areas of public life. While on Monday, Krupa Padi spoke to Fawzia Kufi, Afghanistan's first woman deputy speaker of parliament, and asked her for her reaction to the news of Mosul's death. Indeed, it's heartbreaking to see one of our young colleague who, when she was elected, called me and asked me for my advice on her political career and how should she position herself was killed brutally. She initially chose to stay when she could fly, but over time, recently when there were more risks towards her, she called several times for possibility of

leaving but of course it was not possible for me because simply many countries now don't listen anymore to the voices of Afghan women who are in Afghanistan so it's sad. Can I just be clear then we know that she chose to stay inside Afghanistanghanistan when the taliban came to power but since then she had been trying to call you connect with you for advice on how to leave yeah she chose to stay initially because um she was uh you know having several uh activities and projects that could support women um but in the last two, three months, she was feeling the threat and the pressure. And so she wanted to leave recently, but it was not possible for us to help her. Can you give us a sense of what she was like as a person?

Well, a young, ambitious woman who wanted to offer so much to her country, like many other women and girls in Afghanistan. She wanted to be part of the progress of her society. At her young age, she ran for parliament and then was elected from Kabul. You could see her often going to the executive ministries and offices with her constituents, people from her constituents. She was attached to her people and that was, you know, the reason. Her passion was her people, to stay in Afghanistan. But a Taliban claim that they have brought security to the country and they are the one who can secure Afghanistan, of course, is a failed claim because, and a false claim,

because since they have come to power, we know that Afghanistan is not safe, at least for the women. Not only that they are being erased from the public sphere, but also they are being, many of them are arrested, arbitrarily arrested, they are killed. And some of those actually don't even come to the media. I should be clear that the Taliban have not claimed responsibility for her death. But what do we know about what happened? Taliban don't claim for any of the responsibilities of the killings that they have committed in the last year. So at this stage, no one knows what happened. But because there is

a culture of impunity, and there is no accountability from the Taliban in terms of protecting the citizens, we know that Mursal is not the last one, and she was not the first one to be killed. So there is two points. Either the Taliban did this, or if the Taliban didn't do this, they failed to protect the citizens. Yeah. She also worked for an NGO, I understand. And we know that in recent weeks, recent months, women have been curbed in their activity when it comes to working with NGOs. In fact, told that they no longer can work for NGOs. Do you think that has to any extent made her more vulnerable? Exactly. After like, especially after the recent ban of Taliban

on the 26th of December, asking women to stay home and not work even with NGOs and the UN, that she wanted to really leave and she contacted me. And after she was killed, another female member of parliament from, you know, south part of Afghanistan contacted me yesterday with a very terrifying message saying that now next might be me. Can you help me get out? All of these messages are the stressful part of my life being in exile because we can't

do much about our sisters who are in Pakistan or in Iran waiting to go a safer place and those who are in Afghanistan constantly not that they are only facing security threat but no hope and opportunity and I think it's true that we can't get 35 million people of Afghanistan out of Afghanistan obviously we really need to do something to change this the situation on the ground to return the power back to the people. We need to really all work for a political process. That was Fazia Koufi.

Now, Elizabeth McGovern was Oscar-nominated for her portrayal of Evelyn Nesbitt in Ragtime, and by the age of 21, she's had leading roles in the film Once Upon a Time in America, followed by The Handmaid's Tale and The Wings of the Dove she's probably best known though for playing Cora Crawley Countess of Grantham in Downton Abbey

and she sings and writes for her band Sadie and the Hotheads who have opened for Sting no less she's now on stage where she's starring as Martha in Edward Albee's masterpiece Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf alongside Dugrae Scott who plays her husband George. Well Jess spoke to her earlier

this week and began by asking her to give a brief synopsis of the play. The play is about the complexity of a marriage that you get to know when they come home late at night from a party and they invite another younger couple to come share an evening of drinking with them. And in the course of the evening, both marriages are exposed. Let's hear a clip, shall we? This is you as Martha and Dougray Scott as George. Make me a drink. What? I said make me a drink. Well, I don't suppose a nightcap would kill either one of us. A nightcap? Are you kidding? We've got guests. We've got what? Guests. Guests? Guests. Yes, guests. People. We've got guests

coming over. When? Now. Good lord, Martha. Do you know what time it... Who's coming over? What's their name? Who? What's their name? Who what's her name? I don't know what their name is, George. You met them tonight.

They're new. He's in the math department or something. Who? Who are these people? You met them tonight. I don't remember meeting anyone tonight. Well, you did. Will you get me my drink, please?

He's in the math department, blonde, about 30 and... And good looking? Yeah, and good looking. It figures. His wife's a mousy little type without any hips or anything. Oh. You remember them now. I think the energy between the two there is very relatable to a lot of people. So

just tell us a bit more about Martha. What sort of woman is she? I think Martha is a typical woman of 1950s America, which is full of suppressed ambition that she does not even realize she has, which manifests as anger and frustration and wit and a lot of alcohol is kind of how she manages it. And that to me is emblematic of that generation. And it was a generation that had convinced themselves that their lives were perfect. It was the 1950s and America was supposed to be this wonderful place. But Albie sort of cracks the surface and you see beneath that veneer. Tell me about your career in Hollywood as well, because you were very successful from quite a young age, weren't you? Your first role in Robert Redford's Ordinary People alongside Donald Sutherland, which won four Oscars.

A year later, you had your own Oscar nomination for Ragtime. And that was all by the age of 21. How much of a whirlwind was that for you as a young actress? Well, you know, for me, it seemed sort of ordinary because it was all I knew. I mean, I had sort of stumbled into acting in a weird way. I mean, I didn't come from, even though I grew up in LA, I didn't come from a family that was in the business. And so it wasn't I wasn't spoon fed the sort of the dream to be a Hollywood star in any way. I was doing plays in high school and I got an agent who said, oh, let's let's go for a job this summer. And the job turned out to be this movie that did very well. And so in a way,

I think that was made it easier for me because I, I just kind of was taking one step at a time and getting through the day, really. Yeah. And the success has continued because of your role as Cora Crawley, the Countess of Grantham for Downton Abbey. Did you realise at the time how successful that was going to be? No, that's another one. I mean, that was a script that I liked, but my feeling was, oh, my mum and I will both like this. And it turned out that it was my mum and I and like the rest of the world. It was, you know, really a shock. It's interesting because that character that you play is so different from Martha.

What do you like about playing Cora? What is it specifically that attracted you to that role? Well, she's a very nice person, you know. In some ways, I feel a lot more engaged with the Martha role because there are parts of my authentic personality that I can access and almost sort of pured because there's a lot of bitterness, angry ambition, which, you know, I have to admit in me, you know, which which I don't I don't get into playing Cora. So they just sit there and they sort of stew while I sit in my corset. And so I feel I feel it's nice to get all that stuff out in the safe environment of the of the stage and it's not just acting that you're known for you have another string to your bow elizabeth because you're a singer songwriter as well and play the guitar how do you find the time um and you have a band

sadie and the hotheads tell me about that and how does it feel when you're performing on stage with your band compared to being an actor? Well, thank you so much for asking about that. I love it. I feel like it's truly my voice, for better or for worse. You know, it's my vision, my words, my kind of inner monologue. I feel like that's what the songs are. That's where the plays I write from. So when I do a play, I really try to embrace and convey what my interpretation of somebody else's inner monologue.

And so for the music, it's my inner monologue. So of course, I love it. It's an absolute privilege. That was Elizabeth McGovern speaking to Jess. Now here's a question for you. Do you consider yourself to be a lucky person? Well, many people on TikTok do as a new trend called Lucky Girl Syndrome has taken over the platform with over 80 million views of the hashtag. The concept involves telling yourself that you are the luckiest person in the world, that everything always works out for you, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's hear an example. I have always made it a point to tell everyone I am so lucky I just always expect great things to happen to me. And so they do there's gonna be someone in the comments Who's like well that just opens more room for disappointment because if something doesn't go your way then like you're gonna be disappointed

Well, no because nothing ever doesn't go my way and like if it doesn't go the exact way that I wanted to go then Something better comes up after it. The thing is, it wasn't until I genuinely believed that great things just happened to me out of nowhere that things literally started flying at my face. Like, I'm not kidding. That's from the TikTok of Laura Galebi and is one of many videos on the topic. Well, to delve further into this phenomenon,

I was joined by Roisin Lanigan, journalist and editor at ID Magazine, and the psychologist Catherine Hallisey. I began by asking Roisin to define the Lucky Girl Syndrome. Basically, Lucky Girl Syndrome is this new thing that's taken over TikTok. It's kind of a twist on manifestation, kind of a twist on affirmation. So rather than looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, I'm a good person, I can do great things,

you instead push that energy out towards the universe and you just assume, I'm a good person. I can do great things. You instead push that energy out towards the universe and you just assume I'm a lucky person. You know, you leave it in the hands of fate. Things are always going to work out for me. So Laura was one of the first people to post this video towards the tail end of last year and it got millions and millions of views. And then it's been followed, as the algorithm will do,

by tons of other videos from young women like her who are saying, I started doing this and now my life is great. Someone paid for my nail appointment. You know, I managed to sort of fight with my roommates, really inconsequential things that they're attributed to being lucky. How has it become so popular? I think there's a few reasons. I think the time of year is a big one.

Laura's video was posted at the beginning of December and then the ones that followed came around the time of New Year's Eve and New Year's, which is when we all want to make our lives better. We all come into the new year and it's grey and it's expensive and no one's drinking, no one's going out, no one's having fun. You're like, I'm going to make myself better. And Lucky Girl Syndrome is kind of like an easy route to doing traditional New Year's resolutions

because you kind of don't have to have responsibility for actually making your life better in any way. You can just assume that the universe will come to you with things and that it will be fine. So I think it's kind of catnip to New Year's. And how is it different to manifestation, which became quite trendy a few years ago? Yeah, I think it's becoming trendy again,

especially on TikTok. But manifestation, and I'm sure Catherine will speak on this more eloquently than me. We'll bring her in. But it's kind of focused on internal things. And things that are within your control. So you can be a friendlier person you can work harder you can tell yourself that you're a good person you can do things that will

lift your self-esteem and will affect how you present to the world which might make people nicer to you or more positive to you more receptive to you whereas this is more it's about the the world coming to you it's give me an example and one of the examples that I saw was this girl and she said I saw this video and I started telling myself and then I went to the nail salon and I bumped into my mum's friend and I hadn't seen her in ages and she paid for my manicure and that's I'm a lucky girl and then there's another example that I saw was like an ex got in touch I don't know how lucky that is like that doesn't feel that lucky to me but they took it as like a great a great thing

I'm gonna bring Catherine in here is there any psychological basis to lucky girl syndrome good morning I love Roisin's examples I'm laughing away here to myself you know I suppose when I first heard about this trend and you know I must admit I did a little eye roll but when I reflected on the psychological principles that could be underpinning this it started to make a lot more sense so Roisin gave a really good example there of confirmation bias so if you start to repeat to yourself and affirm to yourself i'm so lucky everything always works out for me you start scanning your daily life for examples that confirm this belief so the girl with the nails so this old friend may have paid for her nails anyway

but suddenly it is confirmation of this um this form of manifestation the the positives of it okay i'm going to state some positives yes isn't this about having a positive outset mindset that's a good thing and and there is a whole branch of psychology called positive psychology that has very firm psychological research underpinning it. And from this, we know that having a positive outlook on life actually does improve your life. So Martin Seligman is the person who developed positive psychology, and he coined the term you may have heard of called learned helplessness. And then what he set to develop then is this branch of psychology that talks about learned optimism and learned optimism is incredibly powerful at improving your daily life simply by working on your outlook

plus action so what's missing in the lucky girl trend is the taking action you're simply repeating I'm so lucky it's the same with affirmations that's just I'm so, I'm so lucky. It's the same with affirmations. That's just, I'm so lucky, I'm so wonderful. And not the deliberate actions that you take. Whereas the traditional approach for manifesting is you also take action. Yes, yes. I always say I've worked very hard to be this lucky. So, Roisin, has there been some pushback on this trend when you see beautiful influencers bouncing around saying,

I'm so lucky, I'm so lucky I'm so lucky yeah I mean obviously the demographic of this so far has been quite small and I think there are a few things I agree with Catherine that it's great to be positive about your life but I think it's easier to be positive if you're in a position of privilege perhaps because you have a big online platform or you're very you know conventionally attractive or you're affluent or you're already in the space that you could get those opportunities it's very different to someone who's so far out of outside that space that it would be more difficult for them I think that that there's been a pushback in terms of privilege but also it kind of ties into imposter syndrome

which has been a big discussion for women especially around their jobs and around their accomplishments that then if you do get things in your life that you want you if you use lucky syndrome lucky girl syndrome to get there then you look at the world and say oh but I didn't really earn this you know it was just that the universe gave this to me I didn't really do anything I think that that's a real problem with it. Also, I think that positivity is good, but we can sometimes fall into toxic optimism or toxic positivity. Tell us about that. Which is, you know, I don't think that there's necessarily anything inherently bad in sense.

Sometimes things don't work out. That is a skill that I think is really important when you grow older, when you grow up to say you can sometimes try your best and things just don't work out. You know, you can be a good person. Sometimes things will still happen to you that will make you sad or feel bad about yourself. It's important to have that resilience and to just sort of blindly look ahead and be optimistic. It doesn't take into account those things that might happen anyway. That was Roisin Lanigan and Catherine Hallisey. And we had a great response from you on the topic of luck. Jenny in Bristol said, I've been very lucky in the past. Last year, I went surfing with mates. I was about waist deep

in water when I realised I still had my wedding rings on. I took them off and tried to put them in my wetsuit pocket. We all know where this is going. But my wedding ring fell into the seabed and we couldn't find it. I drew a picture and put it on social media, pleading for help to find it. Two months later, I got a message from a metal detectorist who found it. It was my wedding anniversary and we were celebrating my in-laws 50th wedding anniversary. I was so grateful. What a great story. And Chris said, when I worked in the city, the saying was luck equals preparation plus opportunity. So work on the preparation and you will get luckier. And another listener, Jenny wrote, I've recently finished treatment for breast cancer. Every morning I wake up and feel well, able to taste my food,

walk my dog in the wonderful landscape around me and enjoy the company of my friends and family. I feel lucky. Now, do you ever wonder why you're being shown particular adverts online? On Monday, we speak to one woman who's being advertised egg donation banks despite having no interest in this. She wonders if she's being targeted because of her gender. We will seek to find out if she's right. Join us, as usual, 10am on Monday.

That's all from me. I'm going to prove right now before I leave that we are all very lucky. Put your hands on your chest. Can you feel your heartbeat? Aren't we lucky? Enjoy the rest of your weekend. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year,

I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this?

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