Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Stonewall, Pride & Prejudice (Sort Of), Parcopresis

Episode Date: November 20, 2021

Nancy Kelley is CEO of Stonewall, the largest LGBT rights charity in Europe. She speaks about her organisation’s work and gives her reaction to recent high-profile withdrawals from Stonewall’s Diversity Champions workplace inclusion scheme, including the BBC.This week the cricketer Azeem Rafiq candidly described the racism he's suffered. We talk to the MP Naz Shah and Halima Khan who works in grassroots cricket about the impact of his testimony.For millions of families, the past 18 months have been defined by grief. A growing online community, mainly fronted by young women, is helping others to find support through loss. We're joined by Amber Jeffrey, founder of The Grief Gang podcast, and Helen Smith who has an Instagram page called Lockdown Grief.Parcopresis is the inability to defecate or go for a poo without a certain level of privacy. The condition is also known as shy bowel and it can stop people from feeling comfortable about going at work, while out and about or even while sharing a toilet with a new partner. What causes this anxiety and why do more women suffer than men? We ask Eleanor Morgan, author of Hormonal: A Conversation About Women’s Bodies, Mental Health and Why We Need to be Heard and Professor Siwan Thomas-Gibson, a consultant gastroenterologist.Pride and Prejudice (sort of) is a sweary, anarchic reboot of the classic Jane Austen novel by Scottish writer Isobel McArthur, in which an all-female cast of five play all of the characters. We're joined by Isobel and her co-performer Tori Burgess.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.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Coming up, an exclusive interview with Nancy Kelly, the Chief Executive of Stonewall, responding to the BBC's recent withdrawal from the charity's workplace inclusion scheme. She also shares her views on current debates around sex and gender. Plus, have you ever suffered from parkopresis? It's the inability to defecate or go for a poo without a certain level of privacy.

It's the kind of thing you might experience at the beginning of a relationship. But what is that all about? If we have to keep parts of ourselves concealed, that doesn't feel very romantic to me. And I think it taps into these quite archaic ideas of how women should, I don't know, occupy space, how we should look, be, smell, particularly in relation to men.

And I just don't like it. We speak to experts about the condition but first an exclusive interview with the chief executive of Stonewall Europe's largest LGBT charity. Stonewall was formed as a lobby group in 1989 when a small group of lesbian and gay activists came together because they were devastated that a law had been passed that included the infamous Section 28, which banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools and local authorities. Stonewall pledged to fight for its repeal and for broader social and legal equality.

Since then, it's helped to do just that, lobbying for legislation to equalise the age of consent and to allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt. More recently, Stonewall has also campaigned around trans rights, attracting both praise and strong criticism for its stance on gender identity. As well as campaigning, Stonewall runs workplace inclusion schemes, which one estimate puts at covering 25% of the UK workforce. There are more than 250 public bodies in the Diversity Champions Scheme,

and some have chosen to leave this year, most recently the BBC departing last week, in addition to Channel 4, Ofcom and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. When Emma sat down with Nancy Kelly, the chief executive of Stonewall, for an exclusive interview, she wanted to get her reaction to this news, as well as her views on recent public debates around sex and gender, which have led to accusations of transphobia being levelled at, for example, JK Rowling. In the following excerpt from the interview, Emma started by asking why she wanted the job, which she's been doing since June last year. I'm a lesbian. My life has been absolutely transformed by the work of the movement and by Stonewall. You know, I've been married for 15 years now. I have to pause and get that right to my wife.

I've adopted two children, which was illegal until very recently. And it just felt like an amazing opportunity to try and, I guess, repay all of that by helping to make things better for LGBTQ plus people now. Well, the emphasis with the coverage and debates about Stonewall, which represents LGBTQ plus, as you say, has been a lot on the T, a lot about your work on trans rights, which we are going to come on to. But actually making reference to what you just said about having children as lesbians, the group, of course, still works and campaigns on lesbian, bisexual and gay rights. And a case that was only in the news last week about a lesbian couple fighting the rules on IVF. I also understand that you are as an organisation behind.

That's right. So the Wonderful Wagon are being incredibly brave and stepping up and bringing judicial review of the current rules on IVF. And they're incredibly discriminatory. And if I think back, you know, when I was first thinking about starting my own family, we started down a fertility treatment road and then decided adoption was right for us. And I remember seeing a working class lesbian couple in the waiting room having just been told about this. And they were crying because they knew that they would never ever be able to access that treatment so it's so important to us as part of our campaigning on equal access to family formation and healthy lgbtq plus families to get this rule

changed when you refer to wagon there you're talking about megan and whitney bacon evans known collectively as wagon in their work as influencers, just in case people were a bit confused. Let's get though to another part of your work. And it is the part that I have to say that a lot of scrutiny is happening about the moment, which is the tea and the trans rights side of things. And only last week, the BBC joined the likes of Channel 4, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Cabinet Office, and pulled out of Stonewall's Diversity Champions Scheme and Workplace Equality Index Human Rights Commission, the Cabinet Office, and pulled out of Stonewall's Diversity Champion Scheme and Workplace Equality Index,

citing concerns of the perception of impartiality when it comes to BBC coverage of the debate over whether trans rights impinge on women's rights in certain circumstances. Do you agree that the BBC needs to be seen to be impartial on this? I definitely agree that the BBC needs to be seen to be impartial on kind of all definitely agree that the BBC needs to be seen to be impartial on kind of all issues really. It's the national broadcaster, it's really important that people can trust, particularly news programming I think. What I don't agree, and I think BBC didn't

agree in its own statement, was that being part of a workplace inclusion programme, in this case the Diversity Champions programme, was having any real effect on impartiality as opposed to kind of a perception. And I think maybe just for listeners, it might be helpful to talk about what the Diversity Champions Scheme is and does, because it's quite often talked about in shorthand. But what it is, is a scheme that works with the diversity and inclusion team or the HR team in an organisation around how the workplace can be more inclusive. So how you can work with internal staff groups, how you can have more inclusive policies, you can access training, those sorts of things.

It's very similar to other charity schemes like the Mind Index and the support you would get from Mind. But the sense where you say the BBC doesn't agree with itself, well, it obviously did. It pulled out. And I suppose the question here is, do you think true impartiality throughout the organisation is possible when you're being lobbied and paying to be lobbied because you don't deny you're a lobby group? So I guess there's a difference between whether or not participation in the scheme had an impact on impartiality, which, as I understand it, the BBC rightly says it didn't, and whether it's perceived to. So that's what I was referring to in terms of the statement. And we do two very normal things. We're an organisation that wants change, you know, as other charities do. We support people around inclusion and then a completely separate team,

our campaigns and policy team. We might engage with the media. We might engage with policy officials. We might engage with politicians. And, you know, we want the world to be a better place for LGBTQ plus people to work. We want the world to be a better place for LGBTQ plus people to live. You know, we're really proud of the work that we do to create change. But the organisation is one. They may be separate teams, but they abide by the same rules and the same views and the same beliefs and the same principles. Are you saying those

two bits have different views? Oh, no, we believe in the same thing. We believe in the equality of LGBTQ plus people. This comes down to perception, and I will come away from the BBC, but surely you understand that if you are marking the homework of an organisation down, if they don't follow what you say is the way to behave, that first of all, that can create a perception of being on one side or the other. That's the perception point of the BBC. I had one of the top executives on the programme only a few days ago. That was his point. Sure, Roderick. Yeah, I do. Of course, I understand how that would create the perception. I guess what I would put on the other side is what the BBC actually does in terms

of its coverage, which I don't think does evidence any sign of being kind of aggressively pro-trans rights. And in fact, some of the coverage has tilted a bit the other way recently. So I, of course, understand why people might have that perception. In reality, I don't think we've had any real influence over editorial policy. It would be lovely to have more. We would love to be able to kind of have a great amount of influence over the way that LGBTQ stories are covered by everyone. You would love to have more influence over the BBC and its editorial policy. We'd love to have more influence in the world. We want a world that's more inclusive. We're talking about an employer that just left your scheme because it was concerned about that. But you say that and I suppose you've just said they're two separate teams. So which is it? You've got your HR team.

We as Stonewall would love... But you are displaying the exact issue here. You're bleeding the boundaries. whether we're engaging with employers through the university's champion scheme or we're engaging with a media company or any other organization we're always going to be interested in progressive changes that's what the job of stonewall is to do but that's been the concern by some let's bring it away from human resources companies and and those sorts of terms for a moment and bring it perhaps to the heart of what you believe as the chief executive of Stonewall you know and you're guiding it in the latest chapter of its long existence do you believe a person can change their biological sex definitely believe they can change their sex characteristics some but not all of them that's that's what the purpose of people going through a medical transition for those that go through a medical transition is

that wasn't my question yes you could of course have surgery and hormones but do you believe a person can change their biological sex so I don't believe and I don't think anybody believes that trans people's bodies are identical to cis people's bodies no when you say cis for our audience you mean people like me that when I was born they said that's that's a girl and I've remained a girl for the rest of my life I haven't transitioned. Because again we're talking about language that's not language that lots of people will be familiar with other people will be. That's right and mostly we don't need to use it right I think we only use the kind of cis trans

language when we're talking about differences between cis and trans people. The rest of the time we just get on with people and men and women. So when I ask you, do you believe a person can change their biological sex, your answer is? If that is everything that goes into making a sexed body, no. When it comes to women, a tribunal this year ruled that gender critical beliefs, such as the view that sex is fixed and should not be conflated with gender identity, does qualify for protection under the Equality Act.

So that's been described by some as a landmark ruling. Has that changed Stonewall's approach under your guidance? So gender critical beliefs and all kinds of beliefs have always been protected under the Equality Act. And it's absolutely possible for people to hold gender critical beliefs without expressing them in a way that's harmful to trans people. So the distinction here, which kind of comes back to the conversation we were having earlier, is between what we believe and how we express what we believe. And whether we're expressing these things in a way that is not harmful, even if unpopular, even if difficult to listen to, or we're expressing them in a way that is harmful. It's about actually if people feel they can also talk in the current climate how they wish to. Is JK Rowling transphobic? I've no idea. No idea. I've never met her. I think she's definitely said things. You don't have to meet somebody. You've talked about it's the expression of their views.

She's expressed her views. On Twitter, she's talked about this very set of views are her views. I can give you direct quotes, but they are very well known. And, you know, again, there's another reason I'm asking you about this, because I stand with JK Rowling for another story. There's lots of stories like this is trending on Twitter as we speak. Is she a transphobe for saying it the way that she has said it? I think that I have read things that J.K. Rowling has said that are harmful in terms of their impact on the trans community.

Whether you would, for me me whether you would describe a person as transphobic is less important than understanding but i need to know their harm our listeners need to know what the ceo of stonewall thinks about one of the most famous and most successful women from this country is she a transphobe or not i i think as the ceo of stonewall that she's she's expressed some views that can cause real harmwall that she's she's expressed some views that can cause real harm and i also think she's expressed some views that don't and i think her views what has she said that has called could cause harm this really strikes to the heart of it because you've actually changed what you've said it's not about the way she says it you're actually now saying what she

said can cause harm yeah so when we talk about ideas that are based on the concept that trans people are automatically particularly trans women typically a risk to cis women which some not all of what jk rowling has said historically has kind of pointed in that direction then i think that does cause harm to the trans community when such a prominent person expresses those views, because it reinforces the idea that trans people are dangerous or are to be feared. And whether that's JK Rowling's intention, I've got no idea. I'm sure it isn't, actually. I'm sure it is not her intention to cause any kind of harm. But what if those assertions are based on actual cases? So not saying all, but saying this is the concern with having

people who are not biologically female in refuges? Because that's a lot of what she's talked about. So, I mean, if we go back to talking about domestic abuse and refuge settings, we've got a situation where many refugees run on trans-inclusive basis and many don't and use the Equality Act exemptions. And from my perspective, the important thing is that everybody is able to access a service. I guess what JK Rowling has said is that her preference, were she in that situation again, I know that she's got a history of domestic abuse, which she's talked about, then what she would want is to be in a refuge that excluded trans women, or that's how I would understand what she said publicly on the topic. And those services

exist. So what's wrong with her saying that? I think when we are saying it in a way that implies that it's not about our own feelings of safety but about a risk that's posed by another person it underlines it you know it's not in a vacuum is it that one of the very common those two things i don't think i don't think they are actually but you can say that they are but she's going to say she would prefer that and it's very good to have an example i'm sorry she's not here to respond. We'll, of course, ask for her take on this. But she is allowed, is she not? I'll ask you to say that based on her experience. Right. So but you're also saying she can't say that because it's going to cause harm, because it's going to point the people to the idea that those individuals

are violent and to be feared. So which is it, Nancy? So there's a world of difference between a woman who is seeking access to a domestic abuse refuge and saying, you know, I don't feel safe around trans women. Can you accommodate me in that way? And whatever we think about that, whether we think it's justified or unjustified, she should get support. Everybody who needs that support should have support and they should feel safe getting it. There is a world of difference between that and saying not in that situation, not when you are... But she was imagining she was in that situation. She's a writer, she's a person, she's allowed to imagine. Sure, but extrapolating into an abstract situation that you're not in, when you have such a big reach, I think it would be helpful to be aware that that reinforces

stereotypes about trans women. We haven't in this actual bit of our discussion been able to distill what is transphobic because you've just told me a woman is standing at the door of a refuge and she wants to only have biologically born women in that refuge with her. That's okay because she needs the service and she hasn't got millions of followers. But if she happens to have experienced abuse or not, but in J.K. Rowling's situation she had and has millions of followers, she can't say the same thing

because it will have potentially created a view of trans people that could be harmful. Not saying, and I don't think I have said, that anyone can't say things. People can believe and they can say whatever they choose. But the question was what was transphobic? Fundamentally, this is where the balance between our free speech, all of our rights to speak freely and express our views, and the protection of people with protected characteristics comes into play. And there are some contexts like the

workplace where they come into play and they can interact often quite closely. And there are other contexts like the kind of public square and debating issues in public where that's a much less tight coupling, right? You know, nobody is going to bring an Equality Act case. I hope nobody is going to bring an Equality Act case about this interview and anything I've said, for instance. But if you're asking, are some of the views, you know, are some of the views that J.K. Rowling has expressed, do they echo very common forms of transphobia? Yes. Finally, with you, if I may, you reflected on this. And of course, as women's I interview a lot of women in the public eye. Is it something that you are enjoying? Is it something you're enduring? That experience, of course, you know, take that very seriously, what you talked about the abuse that you receive, you know, just just take us into that, because obviously, people will also look up to you as somebody who's in a leadership position especially perhaps from those those backgrounds that you're talking about with those characteristics so most days it's a job that I enjoy and and some days because of the things that you're pointing at it's a job that I endure um and I don't think any of us anybody but

particularly women and and women of color in particular that we know experience really extreme forms of online abuse. None of us should have to put up with that. That shouldn't be the price of having any job, yours or mine. But I also am really fortunate. I've got a very stable, tiny, cosy house with a loving wife and two great little boys. And so I take a lot of comfort, even at the end of a day that I've had to endure from coming home and kind of taking off my chief exec of Stonewall hat and being mum. Nancy Kelly, the chief executive of Stonewall, speaking to us in an exclusive interview.

We approached JK Rowling's management for a response to Nancy's opinions on what she said in this debate. They've said they won't be commenting. If you'd like to hear the full version of the interview with Nancy Kelly, as well as recent interviews referred to with Professor Kathleen Stock and with BBC Director of Nations, Rodri Talvan-Davis, you can find them on the Woman's Hour podcast on BBC Sounds. Now this week, the cricketer Azeem Rafiq candidly described the racism he suffered. No one could fail to be moved by his testimony on Tuesday

and the other interviews he's given since, sometimes very emotional. His comments may have triggered something in people who've experienced what he's talking about. Azeem told the Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee about the racist language he's been subjected to and how he was treated insensitively after his son was stillborn. Now, Azeem said that what he faced at Yorkshire County Cricket Club is without a shadow of a doubt, his words, widespread in domestic cricket. He also believes that sharing his experiences of

racism will be a moment of change in cricket and beyond. But just two nights ago, Azeem came under criticism for anti-Semitic messages he sent in 2011 to former Leicestershire player Atik Javid. Azeem apologised for the remarks, saying in a statement, I am ashamed of this exchange. I was 19 at the time and I hope and believe I am a different person today. Well, firstly, I spoke to Scottish cricketer Priyanaz Chatterjee on tour in New Zealand and began by getting her reaction to Azeem's testimony. It's obviously been very sad to me, quite blunt about it, I guess. Really sad to see the kind of long-term effects that it's had on him, like, very understandably.

But I'm not that surprised. Why not? I don't think it's a surprise to anyone. Like, the brown or black community, that racism is alive and well in the UK and therefore in sporting communities and all sorts of communities. He said that cricket is institutionally racist. Does that include the women's game as well? I don't see why the women would fall out with that structure. So what's your own experience? I would say that for the most part, I've been quite lucky.

I mean, I have nevertheless, though, experienced racism. I know that my teammates who are, you know, people of colour have also experienced racism in cricket. A lot of it comes under the guise of banter. But, you know, at some point, I think there has to be a reckoning. in cricket. A lot of it comes under the guise of banter but at some point I think there has to be a reckoning and I hope that this is it where people start to question

that and realise that actually not everything can just be passed off as banter. I think actually if you pay attention it's quite obvious that a lot of the things that get said are inappropriate and if you look at how people react and in my own experience, I've called things out. I've told people, don't call me that. And they continue to do so.

So I'm just not sure that banter can excuse all of these things. I also caught up with Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West, and Halima Khan, founder and director of Opening Boundaries, a sports charity using sport as a catalyst for gender equality. I started by asking Naz how she felt listening to Azeem's experiences. I was in the select committee in the room listening to most of that testimony when Azeem Rafiq gave it and it was heartbreaking. I felt it was a real tragedy for cricket, for us as a country, for him personally. I commend his bravery in speaking out. And the idea of a 15-year-old boy literally being assaulted and have wine poured down his throat.

And I think that needs further investigation. And what is really heartbreaking is that we see when we have diversity and when we have, and I say this repeatedly, when we get it right, we have the Moinalis and the other Rashids of this world absolutely bringing the World Cup home for us and yet this incident really has been tragic, not just for cricket but for us as a country too.

Halim, I'm going to bring you in because you work, you've worked in cricket your whole life, you've been involved in women's cricket for more than 20 years as a player, as a country too. Halim, I'm going to bring you in because you work, you've worked in cricket your whole life. You've been involved in women's cricket for more than 20 years as a player, as a coach, as a volunteer, an admin too. What's your reaction to what you're seeing being played out? And also let's talk about what Priyana has just said. You know, she said she's experienced it and believes it exists in the women's game too.

Yeah, thank you. Good morning all. I think there's a couple of things here in the wider sense of what's actually happened here you've had somebody that's brave enough to come out and call out racism there is a wider issue in sport and in cricket in particular around institutional racism and i think organizations now need to get a hold of this they need to learn from this need to make sure it doesn't happen again just off the back in you know in the last week from azim's statement and then the ecb are putting out an independent inquiry survey hearing the stuff on alex hales and then azim himself you know apologizing for remarks that he made years ago this is not a person issue this is a cultural issue within

sport why are people allowed to get away with this type of talk? Why is it passed as banter at times? And I think this is where the governing body and the counties need to take a hold of this and look at education. That's not education just to say, let's put a training course on for one hour, for two hours and we're done. You've done your training, Boc Tix, actually this is how do we create a culture where education is seeped through the days and the lives of all these cricketers and administrators who are part of the organisation during the time that they're there. Your second point that you made on the cricketer, I think the challenge that you have with the women's game, and this is where people

really kind of understand intersectionality a bit more, is that it's hard enough being a woman trying to get into the women's game. The women's game has evolved over time. It's a lot better than what it was 10 years ago. However, the challenges that you then face, not just being a woman trying to get into the sport, but then actually being a woman of ethnic minority trying to come into the sport, understanding the different culture that there is. I've played cricket only at a local club level but it's a tradition and nobody's ever batted an eyelid but yes you

do go for you do go down the pub or sometimes a clubhouse will have an open bar that you go and have a drink um afterwards i've never drank alcohol but i've shared in you know i will say that i've sat there and i've had a drink with my teammates. But actually, there's an understanding from both sides that at times I may not want to do that and I may just want to go home. And that's fine as well. And it's about accepting that we all have our ways of wanting to engage with the game in a safe way. And we should all respect that. Naz, has Azeem's message been undermined by the texts that have surfaced showing him making anti-Semitic remarks?

Well, it depends on what the measuring yards do, because I think the issue for the ECB, really, should the inquiry still happen, Azeem has made a heartfelt apology and a sincere apology, which the Board of Deputies have accepted, but it was sincere and he's truly ashamed of what he has said. And I think that shouldn't take away at all from what the issue is at Yorkshire County Cricket, what we've just heard from Halima and the cricketer. We should not, that should not undermine it in any way, shape or form. Is there enough support and solidarity for what he said from within the game? I'm thinking, I feel that there is.

Certainly Lord Kamlesh Patel, the comments that he's made and he's come out and his apology on behalf of Yorkshire County Cricket was unprecedented. His, you know, not gagging him to come before the select committee, that in itself was unprecedented. And these are signs of real leadership. And it will take leadership to have the brave conversation that we need to have to get cricket to where it needs to get to. But Naz, Lord Kamlesh Patel is an Asian man.

For an Asian man at the top of the game to come out and say that is slightly different, isn't it? I think, look, whether he asian or whether he's white the fact is that he has said it and it's now up to us as a community as as members of members in political leadership wherever we are to support him and yes there is commentary that why did it take an asian man to come out but that's why we need diversity at the top so that we can be part of a conversation which includes us rather than excludes us so it's very important that we have lord kamlish patel but it's also very important not to expect him to fix this because it responsibility you know i say

this often just like you don't have to be black to get racism or a woman to be fem get feminism you don't have to be black to get racism or a woman to get feminism. You don't have to be black to get racism. And the problem for racism is all our responsibility, regardless of what race we belong to. You know, we ultimately, it's all our responsibilities. And I also think, and I will say, look, Azim Rafiq is a Pakistani of Muslim heritage. He has said, you know, the idea of alcohol put down his throat, that was Islamophobic. First and foremost, it was an absolute assault. And it was, you know, steeped in Islamophobia and racism, which is rooted in racism. And I think I'd like to see the Prime Minister and the government finally, you know, do something about recognising Islamophobia

and recognising the definition, which they haven't done for two and a half years now. That was Naz Shah, MP for Bradford West and Halima Khan, founder of the sports charity Opening Boundaries. Now, parkopresis. It's the inability to defecate or go for a poo without a certain level of privacy. That's right, I said poo on Woman's Hour. The condition is also known as shy bowel

and it can stop people from feeling comfortable about doing a bowel movement at work, while out and about, or even while sharing a toilet with a new partner. The knock-on effect of this is often constipation, and experts say one in seven adults suffer from constipation, and 60% of those are women. So what causes this anxiety? Why do more women suffer than men and what are the long-term health implications? Eleanor Morgan is the author of Hormonal,

a conversation about women's bodies and mental health and why we need to be heard. And Professor Shuwen Thomas-Gibson is a consultant gastroenterologist at St Mark's National Bowel Hospital in London. Emma asked Shuwen for the reasons behind parkopresis. It's a range of reasons, often around embarrassment, often around feeling that public toilets are dirty. But as you also heard, some people don't want to go to the loo in their own house if there are other people around. So it's an extraordinarily common problem. I see the sort of the end of the spectrum where patients perhaps have got significant symptoms as a result of perhaps many years of stool avoidance or going to the loo. What actually happens to your body if you restrict yourself when you need to go?

Well, if you think about it, we gastroenterologists like to think of the bowel as being a very sophisticated part of the body. It's not given much attention, but it is quite sophisticated. But it's also quite simplistic in its mechanism in that if you eat something at the top end, then something's got to come out of the bottom end to make way for it. And so many people will get the sensation that they need to use the loo to open their bowels soon after eating. If it's not convenient, and clearly often it's not convenient

if you're, you know, driving the kids to school or you're in a busy train and there isn't a loo, then you need to defer. And so that's the clever bit of the mechanism. Your brain tells your bowel that it's got to empty, but it's not convenient. And so that message is switched off. But if you keep switching that message off repeatedly then essentially those messages are downgraded and the bowel stops emptying and stops telling you it needs to empty and of course the stool just builds up and you become constipated no it's uh it's something as you say we don't give a lot of attention to or if we do it's in these ways you know these games and

awful sort of things to try and avoid if we aren't in a scenario where we feel comfortable work loos are also a big thing as well you know i remember a friend saying to me you know she'd always go to like the coffee shop you know nearby because it wasn't particularly nice where she worked and i always thought how awful that was that she was in that situation another theme that's coming out in the messages here uh it's about school i vividly remember when i collected my three children from junior school and they would argue in the car who was going to use which loo as soon as they got home. None of them wanted to poo at school. So it was the first thing they did when they got home. That's a real trend with children, isn't it? It is a trend with children. And it is often these symptoms, constipation patients will tell me that they've had problems from childhood.

It can be because they've been encouraged to only go to the loo at a particular time of day. And of course, if they haven't got the urge, it won't happen. And then they have to wait until the next day, by which time the brain's a bit confused and doesn't know where it can go or not. Kids may not be enough cubicles in the school. And so you will have to queue up at the same break time. The cubicles are not very private either. So you hear noises and so on. So there are all sorts of issues that often stem from childhood.

Stem from childhood and keep going with you. Eleanor Morgan, good morning. Good morning. A message here from Anna who says, when booking a weekend away in a holiday cottage, I will always book one with two toilets, even if it means more bedrooms than we as a couple need. Glad I'm not alone.

The romance side of this is big, right? It is a big thing, but it sort of breaks my heart because I think the idea that you sort of preserve romance or keep some sort of mystery alive by pretending that you don't do something that the other person very much knows you're going to do because they do it too it sort of doesn't really line up for me I've been there you know I know that anxiety but rationally intellectually it kind of it just doesn't sit well with me what What is more romantic than accepting or being accepted for exactly who you are? We all are bags of meat that make noise and make smells. Oh, sell it to me, Eleanor.

Yeah, I love talking about that stuff. No, I know. I just love this vision of being a bag of meat. I'm going to sit down with my husband this evening and say, you know, we're just both bags of meat, darling. We are, though. And I think my idea of romance is acknowledging and accepting that. I think if we have to keep parts of ourselves ideas of how women should occupy space, how we should look, be, smell, particularly in relation to men. And I just don't I just don't like it at all. It's one of those areas as well, though, because it has. And I know you've looked a lot into this because it's to do with what it's to do with, it really isn't something that anyone's prioritised, perhaps, to get rid of the stigma around.

Because it's often in bedrooms, at the beginning of relationships, all these, it's not just within relationships, of course, we've been hearing about workplaces, people being in their own homes. But I think where it's linked to if a woman is attractive or not, that's where it's particularly pernicious yeah i agree it's all of those old ideas about what women should and shouldn't do it's the male gaze kind of um or the male nose you know whatever or the male ear yeah but i don't know i think we deserve to sort of try and wriggle away from that to be honest I think who is it really serving if you think about it if you're I mean I just got a text from my best friend Kate telling me that she once when sleeping with a new person ended up in Whitechapel Hospital because she had held in farts all night and was in excruciating pain. I mean, that's funny, but it's also, I don't know.

I mean, farts are just funny. I mean, there's no two ways about it, wherever they're coming from, because they're silly sounds. But it doesn't mean you have to be ashamed of them or cause yourself any harm. A message is coming from Neil. I can't speak for the whole of manhood. Good to clarify, Neil. But my own experience is quite different.

I used to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid having a poo when there was a chance that a girlfriend would know, holding on, only going when out, etc, etc. In every single case, it was the woman who broke the ice and the same goes for farting. One could say that it was the case of a woman, as usual, having to get a grip on the situation.

And I think there may be something in that. When I first met my wife, she shared a house with four other quite frank women that it was the case of a woman, as usual, having to get a grip on the situation. And I think there may be something in that. When I first met my wife, she shared a house with four other quite frank women and their scatological discussions immediately put me at ease. So there are women out there of the same view as you, Eleanor. Thank God.

Thank God, indeed. That was Eleanor Morgan and Professor Shuan Thomas Gibson. Well, lots of you got in touch to share your experiences with Parco Precious or Shai Bale. One listener emailed to say, I wish I suffered from Shai Bal. It is infinitely preferable to IBS. When I gotta go, I gotta go. This means leaping from the car and pooing behind a tree, begging to use the loo in shops and on one occasion, which my children won't let me forget, squatting behind a quad bike in the Sahara whilst exhorting

our tour group to look the other way. Fancy. Still to come on the programme, Pride and Prejudice, as you've never seen it before. We're speaking to the cast of Pride and Prejudice, sort of, where an all-female cast of five play all of the characters, complete with karaoke and many costume changes. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am, just subscribe to the daily podcast for free via the Woman's Hour website. Now, for many people, anxiety, stress and, of course, grief have defined the last 18 months of living through a pandemic.

New research by the end-of-life charity Marie Curie reveals that around half of people in the UK think we don't talk enough about death and dying as a society. But what about losing someone when you're young? Between March of last year and April of this, 1.5 million children worldwide lost either a parent, grandparent or caregiver to COVID-19. And there are fears that grief's severe impact on mental health would be the next health crisis as a result. Well, Emma was joined by two bloggers, both who've platforms dedicated to exploring this topic. Amber Jeffrey is the founder of the Grief Gang podcast. And Helen Smith has an Instagram page called Lockdown Grief. She started by asking Helen about her loss.

So I lost my dad, Ian, on the 12th of April 2020. So it was at the start of the first wave and it was to COVID-19. He was 73 years old. Not that I feel it's relevant, but he had no underlying health issues because that is unfortunately one of the first questions that people now ask you with a loss during the pandemic. And yeah, it completely shattered me. My dad was my best friend. We were very, very close-knit family unit. It was very quick. And to this day, the word that I used to describe it over and over is surreal, completely and utterly surreal.

And it's changed your relationship, hasn't it? Your relationship with your partner and also where you live and kind of how you are day to day. Tell us a bit about that. So my partner is actually a police officer. So he ended up having to work throughout the pandemic. So that in itself adds a strain to any relationship, let alone when I have just lost my dad. And because I lost him during lockdown,

as soon as I could, I actually relocated because I was furloughed from work, which was a blessing in disguise, actually. And I relocated to go and stay with my mum because she had been left alone, having seen my dad get whisked away in an ambulance. Of course, she was my top priority. I was really, really fortunate that my partner is incredibly understandable. We've got great communication. So I'd actually say it strengthened our relationship massively. And yes, as you mentioned, we then also took the decision to relocate from London to Surrey so that I could be near my mum because I just couldn't bear the thought in all honesty of her now having to live alone, having dealt with this trauma and this

sudden loss of her of her husband and your relationship with her must have also changed absolutely it's it's strengthened massively I always thought that we had a good relationship before but I think having gone through this traumatic it was traumatic experience together you've automatically got a strengthened bond just in that relatability and understanding of what it really feels like so yeah i was going to say you you also then have perhaps more responsibility with regards to your mum and we're talking about being young how old are you i'm 33. And of course, a little bit younger when this happened. Yeah, I lost my dad at 31. And now, I suppose, you have a responsibility you didn't have before.

Absolutely. But in all honesty, I know my mum is very aware of being a burden on me. And I tell her so often, it's not a burden to me. To me, it is a necessity. It's natural for me that actually my mum now is my priority I've witnessed one of my parents die I'm going to do everything I can in my power to look after my remaining parents so I don't feel like it's a burden in any way shape or form. Amber let me bring you into this good morning. Good morning thank, Emma. Tell us about your loss. Yes, so my loss, it goes back a long time ago, about five years ago. I was 19 at the time and I lost my lovely mum, Sue Valentine, to a very sudden heart attack. She was here one day and gone the next.

And as you can imagine, being a 19 year old, it was my first ever bereavement. I'd never experienced a loss on that scale before it just absolutely rocked my world and my older brother our world I know who's listening and um we were just catapulted into this world of navigating a life without mum and over the last five years it's it's a constant journey grief is a constant journey it's a constant project that you will forever be working on. And I think for anybody listening, that can sound really daunting because I think society, sometimes we can be told there's a timeframe on grief

and, you know, give it a couple of years, you'll be all right. And the cold, hard pill of it is, this is for life. But for me, I used to find that very daunting. But now I actually see that as quite, I say lovely for lack of a better word, but grief for me, my grief for me is just a whole lot of love for my mum. So I'm quite happy to work on that for the rest of my life because it means on working on my relationship and my love of my mum for the rest of my life till I'm here, until I'm gone.

That is an incredibly beautiful way of pushing it and keeping them with you I suppose as you live and keeping them alive with you and as you carry on. What was it like when it happened in the sense of the word you used by Helen there was surreal but can you for people who might just be at the beginning of this can you explain how it impacted you? Grief in those early weeks in those early months it touches everything in your life it it seeps itself and digs its claws into everything in your life and it just it engulfs everything and you often look and you think there will never be a time in my life where I won't feel it won't it will be constantly forever the

first thing that is on my mind when I wake up in the morning and I'm here to tell you that it won't feel it won't. It will be constantly forever. The first thing that is on my mind when I wake up in the morning. And I'm here to tell you that it won't be one day. It won't be the first thing on your mind. And you might think that could be what does that mean? I'm forgetting them. Does that mean I don't miss them anymore? Does that mean I don't love them as much? Not at all. We adjust. We persevere. We mold with our grief. We adapt with it. And so, yeah, for people who are in the early throes of it and thinking there is no way out of this really dark hole, there is. And there's people out there who just get it. Like I've met through Helen, through my online community. And you find people who just get it and you don't have two heads. You're not an alien don't worry well and and also the the other side of this that we're specifically focusing on is what it does to you as a younger person as well because you were 19 and you're really just forming yourself at that point and thinking about how to be a person in

the world and have your own relationships how do you think it's altered the course of your life absolutely being 19 I was freshly 19 and I didn't know what I wanted to do career-wise I didn't know how to use a washing machine Emma like I just I remember doing my first washing load after mum died and looking at the washing machine and going oh my god how on earth do I use this it completely turned my world upside down she'd looked after you well hadn't she she looked the one thing she did teach me was how to cook she went if it's going to be something I'm teaching you it's going to be how to cook so I never went hungry when she died that's for sure but it completely yeah altered how and I

thought what kind of woman do I want to be and how will I even navigate what woman I'm going to be without the main woman in my life and there has been times where I think I don't know how that's going to be but what when I find myself in those moments I speak obviously more to my experience of a maternal losses my mum instilled so many lessons and so many morals within me that when I feel what kind of woman do I want to be um and not following my mum's footsteps because I am my own being and I am my own woman but she instilled a lot of those lessons and and morals in me that I know I'll be all right um and I'll always come out on top so it's um but when you're young and bereaved you are stripped of so much and that was one thing I found that when I would speak with other people in my life be in my work and

they were older maybe 20 years my senior, and they go, I know how you feel, darling, I lost my mum. And they lost them maybe in their 40s and 50s, so that's not to disrespect or disregard them, but I was like, but you've got 20 years more than me. Your mum got to see you get married, have babies, to hold your children. I'm grieving not only for the loss of my mum, but for all what should have been,

and not even should have been just for me, should have been for my mum my mum lost out on so much and there's that whole added layer and we can often being young and bereaved you can look to those future milestones and think oh my gosh that's going to be really hard when I get there I know when I have a baby I'll probably have an identity crisis and think, oh, my gosh, what kind of mother will I be without my mother? But like I said, she's my mother. She's instilled all of that in me. I know I'll be a good mum. I know on my wedding day I'll be fine.

And it's just you look to the future and you can acknowledge that those milestones will be hard. But you cross that bridge when you get to it. I could listen to you all day, Amber, on that. People can on the Grief Gang podcast. Amber, Geoffrey, thank you so much. Helen, let me just let you come back. It's a very odd thing that people are allergic to grief. They don't want to think about death unless they very much have to.

Have you had any of that experience? Absolutely. I mean, I'll be honest with you. Similar to Amber, the loss of Herman, my dad was my first bereavement and my experience of grief. So had I not been through this, I probably would have been on the other side of the fence and absolutely naive about grief because it is just a thing as a community and as a country. We just clamp up and don't talk about things that are difficult. We'd rather just push them to the side and not have to worry about it until it happens to you. But the thing is with death, it will happen to everybody and it will touch you at some point in your life regardless. So for me, we really, really do need to make it the norm to talk about death and dying and to talk about our wishes once we die and to talk

about grief because it is life-changing and it will affect every single one of us and I think there's a stigma attached to it that can be seen that you're morbid and that you know you're depressing because all you want to talk about is your dead dad it's absolutely not that I think it's really important to normalize grief as an emotion same as any other emotion we talk about so I'm, really big on just campaigning for just making it normal, having no stigma or any shame about talking about grief and the pain that comes with it. Amber Jeffrey and Helen Smith.

Now to the women's theatre troupe tearing up the West End. Pride and Prejudice, sort of, is a sweary, anarchic reboot of the classic Jane Austen novel by Scottish writer Isabel MacArthur, in which an all-female cast of five play all of the characters in an all-singing and dancing production. To give you a taste, Darcy, played by Isabel, is an uncommunicative grump. Mr Bennett is literally just a chair and a newspaper, and Lizzie Bennet is Larry with a strong Northern Irish accent. Emma spoke to Isabel, who besides writing and performing in it, also co-directed it, and her co-cast member, Tori Burgess.

She started by asking Isabel how she approached reinterpreting the much-loved classic. It's certainly a challenge. I mean, one of the things that was clear reading the novel initially is that there are so many characters and there's a tremendous amount of plot to fit in. And incredible, incisive satire and comedy and just so many delicious things that you want to include in any adaptation. So picking and choosing was certainly challenging. But from a character point of view, there's easily... So there's something like 119 named characters in Pride and Prejudice. Is there?

So the initial challenge was to say, right, how do you reduce this down to those which are absolutely essential for the telling of the story, so that Austinites don't feel shortchanged in some way, that they get the story they love, but also that those of us who are completely unfamiliar with austin which was certainly true of many people in our original audience in glasgow can follow the story clearly from start to finish not needing to have done

any research or have any prior knowledge and then having that set of essential characters divide them somehow by five in such a way that an actor doesn't end up falling in love with themselves at the end of Act One because you've miscalculated. And also, I will bring you in in a moment, but there's a great use of karaoke. Yes, karaoke is the love language of this piece. It just struck me always,

if you're in a pub listening to people sing karaoke, there all humanity is on display. You've got triumph and tragedy, peacocking, struck me always if you're in a pub listening to people sing karaoke they are all humanities on display you've got triumph and tragedy peacocking you've got terrible crippling shyness and so I felt that it was a cultural access point that most of us felt we could relate to and had seen and therefore was a great way in. I have to say a big part of watching it is that you do feel like you're then with those characters in the pub and they're singing along. And so much, of course, about Pride and Prejudice is about love and young hearts. Yeah, absolutely. It's such a joyous show. And I think that's something that we felt

that even, dare I say, pre-pandemic when that life existed. You know, when we did it in Glasgow, it just was the most joyous thing. And every night it kind of felt like, oh, we've done it, we've done the show again. And then now to do the show when we feel like everyone really kind of needs this laugh. And even seeing people react to the show with face coverings on and sitting there,

you can still see their eyes twinkling and they're laughing. And I think that's something that's really kind of special. And that's something that you don't know until you try it with an audience post-pandemic. I mean, who could ever say that? Can you remember all the people you play? I can, yes. Who do you play? So I play five characters.

So I've got quite a hefty track, as we would say. Tori plays the most of anyone on stage. Oh, really? Yeah. So I play five characters, so I've got quite a hefty track, as we would say. Tori plays the most of anyone on stage. Oh, really? Yeah. So I play Mary Bennet. I think I might say that she's probably my favourite. At one point, there was something on Twitter where someone said, Mary for Prime Minister.

I agree with that wholeheartedly. And I play Lydia Bennet, who's also very fun. And I play her Mancunian, which is where I'm from. Good woman, so am I. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, so she's a little bit close to home as like a teenage me, I think. And I play Mr. Collins, a slimy Mr. Collins. And everyone's favourite auntie, Mrs. Gardner.

We go from absolutely loathing you to loving you and then back again. It's quite confusing. I mean, and of course, I should say, Isabella, I thought I should blush when you walked in because your Mr Darcy is quite something. Oh, thank you very much. Straight into it. But it is incredible how well,

just by not really moving actually with that character, you could take us there. This has been the biggest revelation for me, both as a performer and as a woman, which is that I have spent my life as an actor playing women or occasionally animals or, you know, it depends whether you're in panto or what you're doing.

But ultimately... The mortgage calls, right? If you're lucky enough to get a mortgage as an actor. Well, sorry, yeah, that's an even bigger point. You can come back for a housing debate. Sure. Goodness. But I appreciate that so much of my inherent physicality, and that's what any actor has to be honest with themselves about before they can be chameleonic and take on other roles is about letting other people in.

I'm doing it now with my hands. You're each two metres away from me, but I'm trying to say, look, I'm including you. I'm talking to you both. I'm not the enemy, I promise. I'm on your side. And suddenly to play this high status, rich, eligible, handsome man is to be able to stand completely still and be the total centre of attention and do nothing. And I thought... Nothing to create space, nothing at all. No. And of course, then everybody moves moves around you you become the axis on which everything else swings and it has blown my mind and I see it now in every room that I stand in and operate in but have you taken it on because I what I have to say is someone who obviously as sort of part of my job is conversation you know I'm the business of it. I'm very comfortable in silence.

I let silences hang and I do it in my real life too. But it is quite important as women sometimes to learn, to step into that, isn't it? And has it changed you? Oh, utterly. Occasionally you come up against situations and maybe particularly in our industry, but anybody does in their professional lives

where you go into a meeting and you say, well, here's my idea and here's my proposal and people will sit silently. And you go, of course, I could change it. Or, you know, if you don't like anything, this is a terrible tactic, isn't it? But you realise you can play their own game. It's quite high stakes, I should say, silence on the radio

because, you know, people then start turning it up and they're thinking has Emma just dropped off? Has the guest dropped off? Has everything gone? Let me come to the idea for you Tori about one of the things that struck me so quickly, it's the first bit of it is you're wearing these white dresses

which are the kind of the neutral bit of the uniform for the servants. That's how you all start together on stage and you've got your rubber gloves on and you sort of, what's been described as you bother boots, I just say, you know, Black Doc Martens or whatever they are, those sorts of boots, other brands are available. How important do you think it was to remind the viewer

that servants made it all happen? I mean, it's so important and especially for me as a working class actor, I I'm like that for me is relatable like all that sort of stuff is and I never as as a young person as a teenager I never saw myself reflected on stage or people that I know and associate with in growing up so it's like yeah and they are the matchmakers they did everything and I think in the novel there's maybe what like three mentions of a servant comes in and wipes the table or something you know and it's like I think what Isabel's done amazingly well is this is just such a fantastic

vessel for storytelling because no matter where you go cleaners know everything and they can dish the dirt like on on everything yeah and I think that that is it's such a good storytelling so and I we all love playing the servants. We love it because it's... It's totally freeing, isn't it? And you can narrate, can't you, Isabel, on what's going on. I mean, there was that brilliant line, and it just made me laugh. It's no spoilers, and of course, people know the story, hopefully. Or they may not.

But there's that brilliant line, you know, where we make all the lovemaking happen, or something to that effect. The clean sheets just appear. That's it. How can you have a whirlwind romance without clean bedding um it's the well i think you can but that's that's another discussion i suppose as well beyond that i mean doing all the matchmaking it's that the servants facilitated the making of great art for centuries and jane austen herself wouldn't

have written the novel she wrote without those people keeping the household going because otherwise that would have been the work of her and her female counterparts and her family. So I think it's hopefully a doff of the cap to the servants that have allowed us to enjoy all kinds of poetry and prose and concertos and so on. That was Tori Burgess and Isabel MacArthur. And Pride and Prejudice, sort of, is booking through to April 2022 at the Criterion Theatre in London. That's it from me. Have a lovely weekend.

I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.