Woman's Hour - Weekend Woman's Hour: Tilda Swinton, Dads at work, Karen Carney, Living with Tourette Syndrome, Bobbi Brown

Episode Date: October 18, 2025

Half of working dads feel nervous asking for time off to care for their children, more than 20% have been asked ‘where’s your wife/partner?’ when requesting flexibility and 44% say employers treat mothers more favourably in terms of flexible working. These are the findings of a new study ‘Barriers to Equal Parenting’ by the charity Working Families. Nuala McGovern is joined by Elliott Rae founder of Parenting Out Loud and Penny East, chief executive of the Fawcett Society.Tilda Swinton is one of the UK’s most singular and celebrated performers. Over four decades she has delivered unforgettable and varied screen performances, notably Orlando, The Chronicles of Narnia, Michael Clayton and Asteroid City and collaborated with artists and filmmakers. She joins Anita Rani to talk about a new exhibition in Amsterdam celebrating her work and the enduring relationships that have inspired her.There is a new film out now in cinemas called I Swear. It is inspired by the life and experiences of John Davidson, and charts his journey from a misunderstood teenager in 1980s Britain to a present-day advocate for greater understanding of Tourette syndrome. John was also featured in a BBC documentary back in 1989 called John's Not Mad. There is more recognition of the syndrome now, singers Lewis Capaldi and Billie Eilish have both openly talked about living with Tourette's and it's estimated over 300,000 children and adults in the UK have it. The key features are tics which cause people to make sudden, involuntary sounds and movements. To hear more about the condition and how it impacts women and girls Nuala talks to Wilamena Dyer, musician and Tourette syndrome advocate and Dr Tara Murphy, Consultant psychologist in the NHS, and Trustee of the support and research charity Tourettes Action.Karen Carney is one of the most capped female footballers for England. The former Lioness joins Anita to talk about how she is using Strictly to help her 'rebuild confidence' after being 'crushed' by the sexist abuse she faced as a football pundit and her vision to improve women’s sport.Bobbi Brown is a make-up artist turned entrepreneur who created her now famous eponymous line in 1990. Her fresh-faced approach went against 80s and 90s trends at the time for bright colour and contouring and instead aimed to celebrate and enhance women’s natural beauty. She made millions selling her brand to Estée Lauder and has gone on to create a new multimillion brand. On the release of her memoir, she joins Nuala to talk about her life and work.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Simon Richardson

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. A new season of Love Me is here. Real stories of real, complicated relationships. It's not even like a gender. I mean, it's wrapped up in gender, but it's just a really deep self-hate. I think I cried almost every day. I just stole myself on the floor. It's coming on really straight.

It's like he's trying to date you all of a sudden. Yeah. And I do look like. my mother. Love me. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to the program, giving you another chance to hear highlights from the Woman's Hour Week. Coming up on the show, makeup artist Bobby Brown talks New York in the 80s, what she learned from Jerry Hall, and how she found the courage to forge her own path. We discussed what it's like living with Tourette's syndrome. Did you know the condition

affects more women than men? Tilda, Swinton on a new exhibition about her life and career. I asked myself, how could a show dedicated to your 40 years of work be useful? And the thing that I feel I kind of stand for is fellowship. I've worked for 40 years now in long-term relationships with quite a lot of people who want to work in this way. And Karen Carney, the former England football captain, talks about overcoming online trolls and strictly come dancing. But first, we're going to look at attitudes to dads in the workplace and what that means for all families.

The results of a new study into the working culture among dads found that almost three quarters of working dads asked would like to embrace equal parenting, but half of them feel nervous asking for time off to care for their children. 44% of respondents say employers treat mothers more favourably in terms of flexible working. The study is called barriers to equal parenting, and it was carried out by the charity Working Families

which supports working parents and carers. To discuss the findings, Nula was joined by Penny East, chief executive of the Fawcett Society and Elliot Ray, founder of the Parenting Out Loud Network and consultancy, who's also an ambassador for working families.

Elliot is a working dad of two and he started by telling Nula about his experiences. So there is the idea that child care is women's work. I think dads do feel nervous there is the idea that if you as a dad ask for flexible working if you parent out loud at work if you take the full parental leave available you are judged negatively for it

and I think it's important around the framing to really make clear that this is about supporting dads so we can address the mobhood penalty that we can increase workplace gender equality we know that mothers do around 60% more childcare than men even when both couples work, we know that 12 years after the birth of their first child, women are paid on average 33% less than men.

I like that term parenting out loud. So you're letting everybody know, I've got kids and I've got this to do. And I mean, I feel it's opened up a certain amount from the pandemic and perhaps that dad who was on TV one time with the kids flying behind them. But you know what I mean? I don't feel perhaps there is that same division

for positives and negatives between work. and home life as there was before, possibly. I think it's improved since COVID because we've all had a taste of what life could look like when we're at home and we're able to be there with our children. I know a dad who had his first daughter in 2018, had the two weeks paternity leave, went back to work, didn't have any flexibility. His second child was born in 2020. He pretty much spent two years with his child.

And the relationship with his second child is way stronger because he was able to be an equal and active parent from the very beginning. I spoke to so many dads, one particular dad. dad that actually goes to my daughter's school. They don't really have any family around. His wife is a nurse. He works in IT. He has worked flexibly for the last few years. His workplace has said to him, you need to go back in pretty much four or five times a week. They can't really afford after-school childcare. And now they are kind of scrambling around asking other parents to pick up their children from school. It's that stigma around the dad's saying that

actually, you as a man, your idea, your role of masculinity is to be a provider, protect that narrow idea that we are holding to men is damaging for everybody. It's so interesting because they know in a way this study is looking at employers that are holding on to, as you would call them, outdated notions. But I suppose it can be coming from the employees as well. It's so interesting, isn't it? Because we've often heard about barriers to equal parenting is both partners taking on an equal load. what did you think when you saw a fifth that were asked, where's your wife partner when men asked for more flexibility?

Yeah, I mean, there's a lot in this research to be really encouraged by. That's also good to think about it. Yeah, absolutely the amount of dad saying they want to step up. But that particular statistic, the number of bosses and managers saying, where is your wife, where is your partner, I think shows how, unfortunately, how outdated some company culture still is. And whatever policies we see, and we do see more policies towards flexible,

working. Culture is just as important about what is in a policy as well. Even if you have a policy in the workplace that says flexible working is encouraged here, those kinds of comments, where is your wife, where is your partner, or comments about men or women taking their career less seriously when they move to flexible working, that has a real impact on people, how they see their career, how they see themselves. So culture change in workplaces is just as important as getting the policies in place as well. And is it happening? Yeah, it's happening in some places but what's really important

that needs to be happening universally there are big corporations who have got the resources and the time to invest in this but actually we need to see it equally across all workplaces and that includes the public sector and frontline roles as well

this is not just about the corporate world of people working from home with a laptop on their knee this is about all workplaces looking at how to support their employees You know when I was thinking about this though I was thinking about small businesses and, you know, we have often heard from small businesses as well

that it can be difficult sometimes to cover maternity leave and keep the business going depending on, you know, their funding models, etc. But also if men now in the workplace are also wanting that flexibility, I'm just wondering how, Elliot, you speak to small business owners, for example, because once upon a time, it would have been only women they were concerned about leaving the workplace for a year, or whatever it might be. I think for small businesses, they actually have some advantage

because you shouldn't be able to know your people. You're a smaller team. This company culture can be molded easier, I think, because you are intimate. You're small. So actually, we hear from SMEs that they may struggle to offer equal parental leave. So that's small and medium enterprises, yeah. Yeah, they may struggle to offer the policy benefits

that large companies can afford. But actually, when it comes to flexibility, when it comes to knowing that a dad in your team's child has autism and may need additional support. When it comes to knowing that a dad is co-parenting and has his son from one week every other week, we can understand that about our colleagues and then put in place the necessary support around them.

So I think they can be an advantage to SMEs and we should encourage them and talk to them about how they can support their working parents and their working dads. Also in the study, Elliot, there was almost a quarter of dads that were asked in the study. They felt bad about asking colleagues to cover their work. I suppose, and this is a conversation, well, I'm sure people have lots of thoughts on, kind of fairness in a work environment

when someone without childcare commitments, for example, has to cover for someone who does have. How do you, because I know you're specifically going into workplaces and talking about changing the culture, how do you see that? So I think flexible working needs to be for everybody. You know, and I think when it is for everybody, it makes it easier for working parents to take advantage of it. I was lucky enough to work for a great manager. Before I had children myself, I was in a band with my wife. and we rehearsed. It's great. We rehearsed every Wednesday. And I had a great manager at the time who let me work compressed hours and had Wednesdays off. And so when I became a parent, it was quite normal for me to work compressed hours. And the culture in the organisation at the time was one where if you asked for it, your request was valid regardless of the reason. And so I think talking to leaders about flexibility, we all have stuff going on. Whether you are a parent or not, we all unfortunately go through ups and downs in life. We all need to take.

take care of our health. We will have caring responsibilities. We have hobbies. We have things we want to do. And I think just embedding a really good flexible culture is important. Do you think, Penny, kind of looking at it from the foster society, looking at gender equality, that if men had more flexibility and also with the new generations that are coming up that have different delineations sometimes between or a balance between work and life, that things will become more equal? Yeah. Equality at work is dependent on a quality at home without a doubt. We see that women are advancing in their careers. They're taking on top jobs and that's excellent to see. A number of those women who are working flat out will

also be working flat out at home. The way to support women's well-being and their career advancement is to make sure that the home space is as equal as possible and men working flexibly is a key component to achieving that. That was Penny East from the Fawcett Society and Elliot Ray founder of the Parenting Out Loud network. We approach. We approach Kate Dearden, Minister for Employment Rights about this, and she told us no dad should feel they cannot spend meaningful time with their children and supporting them to do so is essential. I'm committed to ensuring that they have the strongest possible backing

to balance work and family life. As part of our plan to make work pay, we know the current parental leave system needs improving, which is why we're carrying out a comprehensive review to make sure it truly works for modern families. Our landmark employment rights bill will also make paternity leave a right from day one and a vital step in giving parents the flexibility and support they deserve. Now, she's one of Britain's most singular and celebrated performers. Tilda Swinton's career has spanned

four decades and she's delivered unforgettable screen performances in Orlando. We need to talk about Kevin, the Grand Budapest Hotel, Dr Strange to name a few. But yesterday, she joined me to talk about a new exhibition in Amsterdam, Tilda Swinton, ongoing, that celebrates her life's work. not just as a solo career, but as a web of relationships with filmmakers like Derek Jarman, Joanna Hogg, Luca Guadernino, Jim Jarmouche and others built on trust, curiosity and shared imagination. But when we sat down to chat, she began by telling me why she'd initially resisted the whole idea of an exhibition about her work. They asked me five years ago and I quite quickly said no because I had a failure of imagination. The Eye Museum, for those who don't know, is an extraordinary cinema museum in Amsterdam. And I'd been there for years seeing exhibitions devoted to my most hallowed filmmakers, Bella Tar, all sorts of extraordinary people.

And I couldn't imagine what an exhibition devoted to my work would be except something rather boring and retrospective and dead. I couldn't help thinking about old clips of old films and old posters and old photographs and old. costumes, I couldn't think of anything that would interest me. And then slowly, well, they kept very patiently asking me again, and I kept updating the software. And one day I asked myself, okay, so what would be useful? How could a show dedicated to your 40 years of work be useful? And I started to reflect on what I might be able to offer, particularly younger generations. And the thing that I feel I kind of stand for is fellowship. I've worked for 40 years now, in long-term relationships with not only a handful, but quite a lot of people

who want to work in this way. Of course, I started with Derek Jarman in the 80s and started to work in a collective way. And when he died of AIDS in 94, I was really stuck. I thought, well, that's over. I can't work in film anymore because nobody else is going to want to work in this way. And the miracle is I've found other families And for 40 years I've gone on working So I thought of this title I thought of ongoing I also thought what a good word it is

To have on posters around cities around the world Yes But publicising this show A good mission statements as well Yeah we need to remember that ongoing is ahead of us You know it's not or rather it's with us It's we talk so often We're absorbing all the

time ideas of endings but ongoing is the thing i do want to talk about um some of your working relationships and and derrick jarman but but first tell us about the exhibition what what can people see what they'll see and they may many of them who might have wanted some rather sort of glamorous finished uh pizzazz are going to be disappointed because really what i wanted to look at was the process of making work how simple it is and it's like a kitchen in a way i i i asked the museum and For them to say yes to this was not nothing. I said, I don't want there to be anything finished. I wanted all to be new work.

And so I've commissioned eight of my collaborators to make new work. There's a new film that I made with Apachapongwyr, et ceteracal, my friend Joe from Thailand, a new piece of work with Joanna Hogg, which in fact is an installation of my first flat in London. There's a new set of portraits with Tim Walker. and a new performance with Olivier Sayyar, who I do performances around costume with. And even Derek Jarman, who's the only one, of course, who's very sadly no longer with us,

I've even found new work from him. The first two screens of the exhibition carry images that no one's ever seen before at Dungeoness, taken from Dungeoness, 1986, super-eight footage of me playing around in the pebbles and in a bluebell wood. How magic, had you always had those? It was in the archive, my friend James McCormack. who worked with Derek and all of us, the producer, he holds the archive and we just went scrabbling around. It's like looking in a bottom drawer and we found these unused bits and

I'm so grateful that they exist because they're as fresh as a day. Oh, incredible. What's it like watching yourself back? It's quite shocking because I look so like my children who are now. My son pointed out to me when he came to the opening of the show, you're younger than I am now and that was quite an amazing thing. And what was it like stepping back into a recreation of your first flat, the flat that you moved out of on the Kings Road when you had your twins? Yes. Well, I was in that flat from when I went to London first in 1983 to when I had my twins and left in 1998. So I think of it as a chrysalis because when I first moved into that flat and I think most people will be able to relate to this,

there's a place and it might be a flat, it might be a room in a house, it might be a squat, It might be anywhere, a student accommodation. It's a place where you entered feeling very formless and vague about your future, but full of all sorts of passions and dreams, and you find your working practice during the time you live there. And that's what that place represents for me. And we literally recreated this flat. And when I first walked into it when it was complete,

because one of the amazing things about those days is we did. take photographs of our flats. Nobody's got photographs of their flats unless they were taking a photograph of a cat and this sort of a little bit of a skirting board around the back the back. But I had no photographs at all of that flat. And it was all recreated from memory. And when I stepped into it just before the show opened, we had this agreement, Joanna and I that I was producing all these details, but I wasn't going to actually be in it until just before it opened. It was literally like walking into the flat. Wow. Yeah. And I wonder if that sort of feeling came back of being somewhere that really ignited your creativity.

It really did. The installation, such as it is, also involves me. It has a soundscape of stories that I'm whispering from each of the doorways of the different rooms, stories of what it was like to live in that flat and what it was like to be that age, what it was like to feel unformed in this way. And the interesting thing is that the next door element of the exhibition is the Derek Jarman section and so the sound track of the Last of England is coming over the walls of the of the installation so that's when I shot that material with Derek I would go to sleep that night in that flat so it's completely appropriate how do you choose who to collaborate with well there is a longer list and the list involved in this iteration of the show and I'm hoping the show is going to

travel the world and and I'm hoping there are other people who couldn't be involved this time because they were busy making pieces of work. And they've said they want to be involved in other ones. But, you know, the title of the show is ongoing. It is about ongoing relationships. You know, I have this vision in my mind of the relationship being the most important, saying that's the trunk of the tree. And then the conversation you're having at the time is the branch.

And the film or the book or the performance or whatever it is is, it's just the leaf. It's not that important. And it seems to me that's a relatively unusual. usual approach. We're always encouraged, particularly young artists, are encouraged to think of the product. How are you going to produce this thing? What's it going to be when it's finished? But that's not real. What's real is our life's work and practice making the thing. And you always, if you're making films, make it in a group. It's not a solo task. And so it's really about

companionship, conversation and an ongoing developing life. And relationship. Now, I haven't seen the exhibition, but I will, because Amsterdam is a great city and what a perfect reason to go. But I have got the accompanying book in front of me, which is, it's so beautiful. It's really tactile. It smells wonderful as well. And I could look at the photographs of you in this all day long, absolutely magnificent images. But you open with a very tender letter to Derek Jarman. And you first worked with him when you were still very young.

Could you tell us about your relationship with him and when you first met? It's unimaginable for me, Anita, that I would be anywhere near filmmaking without meeting Derek Jarman. Because when I met him, I had just left university. I went to university as a writer. I even got my place as a writer and then very, I'm always very ashamed of this, stopped writing the second I got there. And was drawn into performing by friends that I made, again, ongoing relationships. I still know them and work with them, who were involved in theatre. at the university I was at the time

there was no film studies, there was no film course where were you? At Cambridge In fact I had a bittersweet moment a few years ago when I was asked to go and open the new film studies course and I was torn between extreme excitement and extreme unhappiness that it hadn't been open in my day I was looking for cinema at that time but I couldn't find it so I started being in plays with my friends

and then when I left university in a slightly half-hearted way I started working in the theatre and I realized quite quickly that I was not interested in the theatre. And I was just on the verge of going, okay, well, then I'm not a performer when I met Derek Jarman. And what I met with Derek was not only the cinema and a cinema that I really wanted to be a part of. In the 80s, it was an underground world,

an experimental world that was so dynamic and so, you know, it's the sort of beating heart at the culture of the time. How exciting. It really was an exciting time. but I also found a way of being a performer with him which is actually really demonstrated in this exhibition when you see these early pieces of film

you'll understand maybe why I'm always a little bit pedantic about saying I can't describe myself as an actor because it's not acting it's live performance very autobiographical very closer to dance in many ways and I developed that with him over the nine years we worked together over seven films and all sorts of other shorts and performances and whatever.

And that became a way of working that I've drawn on ever since. And, yeah, I can't even imagine how I would be working in film without him. The exhibition also touches on cinema as a place for grieving and protest as much as storytelling. So how does that resonate with you personally?

And I'm thinking about, especially after losing Derek, John, and so many friends from that generation. Well, it is true that, And I'm not alone in this, but, you know, I was 33 in 1994, and I went to 43 funerals that year. Goodness me. And one of them was Derricks in the February. But that was what our life was like then.

And it bears repeating because I know that there's a younger generation that has somehow missed out on knowing enough about it. You know, we've just heard the news reported us sitting here, listening to the news just now, that there's a new approach to the treatment of HIV and it's poignant for us who lived through that to know that it isn't necessarily a death sentence it was at a certain point

and yeah that as a young person that was a sort of bedrock of a lot of my creative life and my exhibition I have to say it's got a lot of ghosts in it it's all about phantoms really and also surviving the departures of people and also holding them close.

In 2025 we received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Berlin ALE. You made a speech about the great independent state of cinema. What did you mean by that? I believe that the cinema is, I mean art in general, but in particular cinema is our place of nourishment and possibly our best resource. It's the place that we can find connection. We can rely on connection. And there ain't no borders. Nobody's going to get pushed out of the state of cinema.

And nobody's going to dominate it. And we are not going to get anybody building any kind of luxury condos on it. It is a free space where we can make our eyes available to the eyes of the world. and it's by the way, for me, completely ongoing and completely undominable. I think it's, you know, people talk a lot about the death of cinema, and there's always been a reason to believe that cinema was dead or dying or very ill. I don't believe that anything will ever conquer our need for it

and our desire for it. If you remember during the lockdown, the COVID lockdown, people really I remember doing a kind of straw pole of all the people that I knew and not only the city nerds but everybody in our village and all the people that I knew you said what are you really missing at the moment

and it was friends and family it was going on holiday it was going on going into restaurants or whatever and it was cinema everybody realized how much we rely on that point of connection and that fellowship

sitting in the dark with strangers it's very important it's not about sitting in bed at night watching Netflix at the end of you which we all value and has a place in our lives but the event the communion. Tilda Swinton talking to me yesterday in the exhibition

Tilda Swinton ongoing is on at the I Film Museum in Amsterdam from the 28th of September to the 8th of February next year. Still to come on the programme former England football captain Karen Carney the unexpected benefits of living with Tourette's syndrome and trailblazing makeup artist Bobby Brown. And remember, you can enjoy Women's Hour any hour of the day if you can't join

us live at 10 a.m. All you need to do is subscribe to the daily podcast. It's free via BBC sounds. Now, as she's been called, one of the most influential voices in English football, Karen Carney captained, the England women's football team represented Team GB at the London Olympics and helped change the face of women's sport not just on the pitch, but in the boardroom and in front of the camera. But it hasn't all been gone. goals and glory. Karen has also faced horrendous, misogynistic abuse online for simply doing her job. Well, on Thursday, she joined me to talk about her life after football, learning to dance on live television in this year's Strictly and why speaking out still matters. I started

by asking her how she was feeling amid all the strictly training. My belly's constantly rumbling all the time, so I've just had a banana to keep me going, so I've got a bit of energy. How does it compare to football training? It's harder. It's harder. I know how to, Like, I know, because I've done football for so long, you know, how to fix things if they go wrong or, you know, how to manage your adrenaline. And I think the hardest thing for me is, is that there was times in football where I probably could have given that little bit more. I didn't realise that at the time. So I had a few regrets from football. So my mantra going into Strictly is like have no regrets, like, go for it.

But the, so there's like one Karen that's like, go for it. Like live your dream. You run strictly. Go for it. And then the other part is like, okay, but you've got to understand that you've got to be in high. cold and there's rules and it's Latin and it's ballroom and they've not really married together just yet so it's really funny like I'm having the time of my life I love Saturdays and performing and doing it with Carlos and so you can see I'm just beaming it's it's such an honour like

15 people a year get to do it as you know and it's such a privilege to be on the show and I've been a fan of it for so long and I can't simply believe that I'm in it you are and you are incredible I have this theory about sports people are going to Strictly. You all do really well because you know how to train. You can set your mind to it. I was a rubbish trainer though in football. You asked my teammates, I was not a good trainer. But you're very single-minded.

So when you go in and you know that you've got a task at hand, you know how to kind of just repeat and repeat and repeat. No? No, I don't think for me. I know how to repeat kicking a ball. I'm like, oh, that's just so natural and that's my. my comfort blanket and I just do it like you know you only get like three and a half days

to learn a dance four days and there's nothing rhythmic about that and I don't know how it all comes together on a Saturday I genuinely don't but yeah I'm probably I didn't enjoy training as a footballer and I'd say the training room is like a positive challenge because you're learning something new you didn't enjoy it

football training no I just want to play games I don't want to do all the drills in that I just want to play So that's where it's funny and yeah But I don't think many players enjoy training Maybe you've interviewed a few people I haven't come across many that enjoy the training side of it But yeah strictly has been awesome I love dance with Carlos

And I love as hard as it is I love learning a new dance And I genuinely every Monday wake up and go I'm grateful to learn new dance Because I'm still in it And I know that means a lot to me Yeah Yeah you've spoken about wanting to you strictly

To build your rebuild your confidence What did you mean by that? I think being open and transparent the last five or six years as my confidence has been really knocked and you know just haven't been able to get out of that and I love this show

and I love everyone that's a part of it and you'll know like everyone is amazing behind the scenes are so supportive and encouraging and I just thought if you're going to rip the Band-Aid off and really try and rebuild your confidence which sounds bizarre by going on the biggest show the country and totally doing things out your comfort zone but that was the only way i thought

i could do it and it feels safe because of everyone involved in the show and i'm doing it like walking down the stairs of the day doing the chacha you know was massively out my comfort zone and i was really proud of that for me and their elements of rebuilding my confidence which i have to say through football has been shattered and crushed and i just want to get that back and show people I'm happy and smiling I'm living my best life and living my dream

and I'm grateful to be part of this amazing show every week yeah and you will always have even when you finished it and you look back someone said this to me you're always going to have

those 90 second videos that you did that that Shacha will always be there and you will have always done it let's talk about when you hit some of those lows because you said the online abuse you received as a football pundit

changed you can you tell us what that period was like it's hard to talk about it if I'm honest because it's really tough for me like I say it was very very difficult moments it completely shattered my confidence and you know

it was really hard it's hard for me to talk to you about it like I try and move forward and look towards the positive sides of things but it definitely changed who I was and who I am and I you know it's a challenge but one that I've I've never shied away from I've always stepped forward and gone back and done it and tried to get better, tried to keep improving,

tried to be a really good teammate to my fellow pundits and try to enjoy the environment that everyone's created, which has been great, and just keep getting better and better. And, you know, I can only be myself and I think I've learnt that to always impress my teammates, which is my fellow pundits,

and know that I work hard and I love what I do for them. The rest I can't control anymore, and I've really started to understand that. How have you done that? Like I said, like I've dived more into the work. I'm obsessed with, like, the patterns of play. I'm obsessed with like the touch table or the touchscreen or the tactical side or the video clips. I go and bring them to punditry.

I ask the team, can I show this clip? I want to talk about this clip. And I fall in love with that. And I focus on that. And I try and be the best pundit I can by explaining why things happen. The other stuff I can't control. But I'm really happy and passionate about the visual. and the tactical side of the game and trying to teach people something they didn't know.

And the stuff you can't control is the stuff often that affects you the most because you described the sort of level of abuse that you received online, that you were crushed by the experience. Just intrigued to know two things, just what it was about the level of experience. And we know because it's misogyny, sexism, you know, the stuff that the pylon that happened to you was horrendous. And then how you work back from that dark place. Just how bad it got on how you sort of start working back from it.

Yeah, I would say crushed. I would say heavy anxiety. It was on one of the best shows I dreamed about, and my mum said she was so proud of me when she heard the music because I matched the day and I had a panic attack. As I was doing a clip, I was out of vision, but I had a panic attack. I couldn't breathe and the anxiety and everything that had kind of came on top of me, came on top of me in that show,

and I was so upset because I'd worked so hard to try and get on match the day for the first ever time. It's such an iconic show and the theme. tune and everything that it meant to my mom to my family to me and I just felt I wasn't my best version of myself however what I would say is is that things are there to to challenge you whether you like them or not and I've seen this as a way to step forward particularly in the punditry come on Karen get even better get even stronger and even though I'm anxious and potentially have lost my confidence sometimes on air I feel safe with my teammates next to me

and if I can explain and fall in love with the tactics, I can really try and help the show and help the audience understand why things happen. That takes a lot to be able to have that self-talk. Yeah, but I have amazing people around me and, like I said, the people that I work for and my teammates, I call them my teammates, my colleagues. I love them dearly and they care about me.

They're my teammates. They're ex-footballers as well. I'm part of their team and they look after me and they always have and I want to be good back to them because how good they've been to me and by that is working really hard and being a good team player.

Are you still on social media? I'm on Instagram and I'm now on TikTok which is fun. Come off the other stuff. Yeah, I think you just control what you can and that's what I can and I hope through strictly people see who I am

and see that I want to smile, I want to enjoy everything. I want to take positive step forwards and I will step out my comfort zone and I'm not going to be the best dancer but I'll give it my best shot and I'll go on every week with a smile and hopefully me and Carlos

produce things that people want to get up and dance when they're at home. I think that's the secret, though. I don't think you need to be the best answer. I think people can sense joy and if you're enjoying it, which you obviously are, we're enjoying it. Now, you were asked by the Conservative government in 2022

to lead a review into the future of women's football. Tell us about that. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I still think, I don't know how that happened. But yeah, I was asked to look into the future women's football. So it was basically to do this big report. I had a team behind me, which were incredible.

And we spoke to everyone in the women's game to understand where the game was currently at. And we put forward recommendations. We put forward 10, and all of them were accepted, and we've been slowly, like, ticking them off and making sure that the game hopefully is in a better place. as we keep moving forward and the game is growing but the 10 recommendations in my mind were just about building solid foundations if we can get the base right anything else on top

of it then will be in a really strong position it's really important that when you're setting something up you have strong foundations and that was my mindset throughout it and it was also my mentality was to have it a blueprint for other sports as well because other female sports I'm sure would have, would be going through similar things. Maybe football was just a little bit further ahead in the journey perhaps. Yeah. What were the most important recommendations? I think the minimum standards that a female athlete, female footballer should have is the

most important for me, is that they, you know, the minimum standards. If we don't have good minimum standards, how can they be the best footballer? How can we then create the best product? It's impossible. We can't have people training at 8 o'clock, 10 o'clock at night, not eating, drinking, not having the right kit, not having the right equipment, you know, having the menstrual support and everything that goes with it, the minimum standards,

the facilities, these are really important factors. I've not once gone into technical, tactical, but it's the minimum standards that we can make sure that these women have the best opportunity to step forward. You've talked about making women support more sustainable and equitable. What concrete changes do you believe are needed in the infrastructure, in media coverage, in funding to turn the blueprint into real change? That's a big question. I need to digest that again. Sorry.

So, I mean, just what the biggest sort of places that you should, you would want changes to happen in terms of, well, let's start with media coverage. What I want to see from it. Look, in anything, is to see it to be it. So obviously it's really important that we are able to see female athletes and female. I mean, we've had a great summer, haven't we, with her lionesses, red roses. We've had such a great window of women's sports. Athletics has done really well.

everyone's been doing really well in women's sports. So that's really great that we can cricket. I went to the Women's 100 as well, which was really cool. We're starting to see it now, and obviously then that becomes the positive narrative, which we want. And that's really important to me, just that visibility and the right positive visibility. And I must say, if you've been affected by anything you've heard in this interview,

you can find more information and support on the BBC Action Line website. And of course you can catch Karen's Quick Step, along with all the other Strictly Stars tonight at 6.30pm on BBC. BBC 1 and Iplayer, Fab You. A new season of Love Me is here. Real stories of real, complicated relationships. It's not even like a gender. I mean, it's wrapped up in gender,

but it's just a really deep self-hate. I think I cried almost every day. I just stood myself on the floor. He's coming on really straight. It's like he's trying to date you all of the sudden. Yeah, and I do look like my mother. Love Me, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Lust.

Next, a powerful new film that's out in cinemas. It's called I Swear, and it's inspired by the life and experiences of John Davidson. It charts his journey from a misunderstood teenager in the 80s in Britain to a present-day advocate for greater understanding of Tourette's syndrome. John was first featured in a BBC documentary back in 1989 called John's Not Mad. Thankfully today, there's much more recognition of the syndrome. Singers Louis Capaldi, Billy Eilish, have both talked openly about living with Therese. It's estimated over 300,000 children and adults in the UK have it. Some of the key features are ticks, which cause people to make sudden involuntary sounds and movements.

To hear more about the condition, and particularly how it impacts women and girls, Nula spoke to Willamina Dyer, musician and Tourette's Syndrome advocate and Dr. Tara Murphy, consultant psychologist in the NHS and trustee of the support and research charity Tourette's Action. Tara starts us off. Tourette syndrome affects about 1% of the population, more common in children than adults and more common in women than men. Do people grow out of it then?

The majority of people grow out of most of the symptoms. That's so interesting. interesting. Do we know what causes it? It's a genetic condition. It runs in families primarily, but there are environmental factors that tend to increase ticks. They don't cause it. So for example? Stress is one particular thing. Other factors pertinent to women in the menstrual cycle, for example. So your hormones, yeah. Exactly hormones. Which can cause stress. Indeed, yeah. And those two things have been put together. And brain development. Ticks tend to be at their most for children between about nine and 13 years of age.

So when we're going through some of those growth sports, as it might be, I mean, I remember with John's Not Mad and even watching, I swear, yesterday, many associated with swearing or shouting obscenities. But could you explain exactly, because it's a syndrome, it can be many things? Yes, exactly. So to have a diagnosis of Tourette's syndrome, you have to have motor ticks, which are the movements, most commonly eye blinking, but also head jerks, toe scrunching. they were there are some of the simple motor ticks

and you also have to have vocal ticks so sniffing, throat clearing, grunting and you need to have both of those sets of symptoms for longer than 12 months and the types of ticks you've just been talking about there, the swearing ticks, that's actually quite uncommon affecting about 10 or 15% of the population

with Tourette syndrome but it's often one the most impactful symptom that someone who has it has on their lives And with women and girls, does it affect them differently or present differently? The studies are not entirely consistent, but what it seems to be is the case that girls and boys have it starting around the same sort of time, about six to eight years of age. But what the data is showing, it seems that more men grow out of more of their ticks and women tend to have them as adults. So if you look at the kind of number of people coming to clinics in children's clinics, there are usually kind of four boys to one.

girl, whereas in adult clinics, it's about two men to one women. So interesting. Well, that brings me over to Wilhelmina. You're so welcome to the programme. Tell us a little bit about your experience of living with. Is your 19 now? Do you remember when it started? Yeah, I've had ticks pretty much my entire memory life, I'd say. Even from tiny things, we can look back at the age of five and six, and I'd always scrunch up my nose. You can sort of look back on it now. And the way it's affected me over my life has differed in so many ways. That's the thing with Tourette. is that it is this sort of constant changing phenomena that is pretty unpredictable

and so it has affected me in so many different ways, small, large and everything in between and I still live with it today. It still impacts my daily life but I think it's really important that you look past the person as well. You know, when I was watching the film, when I was watching the film, I swear, I was so struck by basically how mean people were to John within that film and I hope there was greater recognition.

when you were growing up, Willamina? I'd say it's a bit of a tricky one because it definitely struck some emotional chords that film in all the right ways. But I'd say that although the awareness is better nowadays, I'm not saying it's not. Sadly, you still hear so many kids' experiences being so negative within school,

within any social sort of out in the world environment. And I think that people sometimes think they know what Tourette's is and what that means, but they have this skewed idea of what it is. Yes, exactly, which is why I brought up. some of those aspects that perhaps people might have thought was always a manifestation of Tourette's. But with, which I found out just yesterday, that you were diagnosed by the woman sitting next

to you, by Dr. Murphy, and you haven't seen each other since then? No, yes, it's been a little while. When was that? I was probably around the age of eight, maybe I want to say something like that, so over 10 years now. And I have to let people know we went to take a photo. beforehand and Dr. Tara says, oh, you've grown a bit because Willamina is a very tall young lady now. But you were saying, Willamina, that you actually were presenting probably at five or six.

So that is a few years to go through, even though I'm glad you got a diagnosis when you were a child. Is that typical, Tara? Unfortunately, a lot of children don't get diagnosed as promptly as we'd like them to be. And I think that comes back to limited services across the NHS. The usual age of diagnosis is about nine or ten. Thinking about onset, is it about five, six, seven? And in my career, I've worked with a lot of adults who haven't been diagnosed till their 60s or 70s.

Yeah, yeah. I'm just wondering what was, you kind of glossed over it in a little way, Willamina, that has been good, bad and in between various experiences. But how was school, for example? I'd say that the typical school environment, you know, classroom exams, is in pretty much no way set up for a child with Tourette's. Nearly everything about it is a challenge. And I think that I was really lucky that I found my music from quite a young age that I love and I threw myself into. And it's something that I can always thrive in because I don't tick.

And I think that, to be honest, is the only thing that got me through. Let's talk about that, because in I swear as well, this wonderful man John Davidson puts together at Troll. Weekend and part of it is using percussion drums for some of the children that are there. What do you do? Yes, so I am currently a student studying percussion. How lucky. I know, look at that. And if you can explain to us the difference between when you're playing and when you're not.

Yeah, I kind of describe it in a way that whatever part of my brain it is that the ticks come from, essentially, when I'm playing music, when I'm in that so. concentrated and immersive environment the part of my brain that gives me the ticks it just doesn't have the time of day to input it's so engrossed and there's so much going on and it's just like it melts away and I think it's almost beautiful but you know at the end at the end of the film

and I'd be really curious how you felt about this Willamina as well there is a device he goes to Nottingham which is underway these trials at the moment and research into Tourette's syndrome and it's, I don't know, almost like a smart watch sort of thing is what it looked like to me in the film. Neo pulse and he wears it and it pretty much in the film anyway, it'd be fictionalised to a certain extent, I'm sure,

but removes the ticks or calms the ticks down. What's happening there? Yeah, so that's a medial nerve. It's a direct impact on a nerve that relates to the part of the brain that causes ticks, essentially. And that is one of several directness. interventions on ticks, which I think has its place. I think it's very useful.

But as Willamina just said there, I think for people who have Tourette syndrome, it's about their identity. And it's about living well with Tourette's, which is actually much more important than having something that stops you having Tourette syndrome, I would say. This is what I'm wondering, you know, do you embrace it for all that it gives you the ups and the downs?

Or would you be interested in something that would be able to remove that from your life don't get me wrong on those bad days when I'm really struggling and it's painful and I'm exhausted and I can't do what I want to be doing yes maybe that magic wand would be brilliant but on the whole I'd say that it's not who I am

but is definitely sort of shaped who I am today and I don't think I'd be the same musician or even person like some of my personality traits have really come from that and I think that lots of the problems with Tourette's aren't the Tourette's. It's the

surrounding social culture that really impacts the individual. So I think obviously there is a place for it definitely, but it's not this amazing cure that we just want everyone to stop ticking. I think that's the wrong message to be sending. That was Willamina Dyer and Dr Tara Murphy. And finally, let's hear from Bobby Brown. She is a makeup artist turned hugely successful entrepreneur who created her brand in 1990.

Her approach was to encourage women to celebrate and enhance their natural beauty rather than using any garish colours or contouring. Her line quickly became a huge success. It was bought by Estée Lauder for a reported $74.5 million many years ago and she continued working with Estée Lauder as the creative head of Bobby Brown Essentials.

Well, she's written a memoir. It's called Still Bobby and she joined Noola in the Woman's Hour studio and Bobby began by talking about what it was like to be in New York in the glamorous 1980s. It was pretty crazy. New York was, first of all, so exciting to a young kid from Chicago who just left Boston. It was the era of Madonna. It was the era of disco, Studio 54. And, you know, the city was intense, but I didn't see the intensity. The city, I just felt the energy.

Madonna was in your exercise class. I read in your book. Yes, Madonna was in my exercise class. I didn't know who Madonna was. She just was the girl in the back that was so phenomenal. You couldn't stop. staring at her and one day she just didn't come back and then desperately seeking Susan came out and that was the start of her career. What an era. Yeah. It kind of does sum up though what was going on at that stage and I mean if I think about Madonna as well from the 80s I immediately think of you know blue eye shadow and kind of pink streaks of a blusher for example but that wasn't you and has not been you, as we know. Why did you come to makeup in such a different way?

You know, I didn't realize that I was being a disruptor. I always do things that make me comfortable and feel natural. I tried to do that kind of makeup, and I just thought it looked terrible. I just didn't think blush should sit on the cheek in a line that it should look like your color of your cheeks when you exercise. And I thought foundation should be the color of your skin, not revolutionary ideas. It was Jerry Hall, right, that you made up at one point. But, you know, everybody knows Jerry Hall.

You put on the makeup, but then afterwards? First of all, she was so lovely, and she was such a big famous, you know. Supermodelry. Yeah, at that point. And I was hired to do her for a cover of British Cosmo. So I did her makeup as well as I could. And she was so lovely. She looked in the mirror.

She goes, oh, thank you. It's beautiful. Do you mind if I touch it up? And I said, not at all. And I watched her redo her entire face, like contouring. I couldn't do that kind of makeup. makeup. But the thing about you, some people would massively get the hump if that happened. You write about it, you know, in quite neutral terms of like, this is something that happened. Now,

I don't know whether you felt like that at the time. You know what? I felt it was an opportunity for me to watch and learn because I didn't know. I really didn't know. And I was not secure enough to think what I did was great. So when she was doing it, I was watching her technique. And by the way, I honed a lot of my makeup skills at Fashion Week, with all the models that had one name, Linda, Cindy, you know, Naomi, they all touched up their faces. And I would watch them, little nuances, how they did the eyebrows, the lip. And first of all, as a woman, I understand, we need, you know, you get a blow out from your hairdresser and then you kind of need to make it yours. It's the same thing with makeup. Did you ever imagine when you created those first lipsticks of how successful

they might be and what it might grow into. Absolutely not. And honestly, if I would have had a crystal ball that said Bobby Brown, here is your life, I would have said, I don't want it. Talk us through a little bit of the explosion of success that then led Bobby Brown, the person, selling Bobby Brown, the company, to Estee Lauder. My husband and I were in our early 30s. We just started, we had one kid, we lived out of the city, started to have another.

And I was just continuing to work on this lipstick line until I had an opportunity to go into Bergdorf-Gudman. And then, you know, explosion, yes, but I would go to work. I'd be, you know, really excited. I'd be worried about what's happening at home, like any working mom. Which is all through the book. Yeah. You know, look, I was never cut out to be a full-time stay-at-home mom, but I was never cut out to be a full-time working woman. So I've somehow been always been able to kind of combine both.

And, you know, what that means is you're not doing everything perfectly, but it's okay. Now I know it's okay. But coming back to those lipsticks, they start selling, Estée Lauder gets wind of it. Leonard Lauder is the person who's kind of your contact. We were the number one line in Bergdorz, and we were the number one line at Neiman Marcus. And, you know, we were beating Estee Lauder. And basically what he called, that's what he said. you're beating us in the stores and I would like to buy you.

And I remember saying that's so nice, but we're not for sale. Why were you not for sale? Because we never thought of selling. Like back then, we didn't. You know, now everyone starts these companies and like, we need an exit. We need, I'm like, why are you starting a company that you just want the cash? That's, to me, that doesn't make sense. But that's another story.

It's kind of part of the story, though, because your passion is there. It's not about the money because you could have left a long time ago, if it were. Right. It's my passion is there. And even after the company was sold, I really felt that I still own the company. This is my first baby. I started it before I had children. You signed it Ested order, yes, okay. There came a period when, of course, stuff is online. It's influencers. Estee Lauder wants to perhaps go a different way in a way that you do not want to go. Leonard Lauder, who is a real ally, isn't there in the same capacity anymore. Talk me through that time. the kind of person, up until the bitter end, I thought, if I can only get support around what I want to do, it would change everything. Like, I believed it then. I believe it now. But I didn't, because, you know, there were powers that didn't agree with me and wanted to go in a different direction. I mean, could you imagine when I was there, would I ever have done a contour palette? Never, because I don't believe in contour. You know, would I do things to change the color of people's skin?

or do, you know, full coverage is not a Bobby Brown the person thing at all. So there was a lot of, you know, tough days. It's a very specific moment in time. Because I'm a bit older, I can totally remember when contouring came in and filters and tweakments, to be quite honest. And everything changed, if not overnight, definitely in a short space of time. And you've been outspoken about not getting treatments. that could be filler or Botox or facial surgery.

When I think there is ever more a proliferation of it, how do you see, I don't know, that evolution, that time from, let's say, when the first severe contouring slash tweakment was coming in. Well, the contour thing has been around forever. I mean, you know, Jerry Hall and all of that. True, true. I just was not someone that thought it made people look better. You know, I don't personally like Boat,

talks. I don't like filler. I don't look down at anyone that does it. People are allowed to do whatever makes them feel good. My husband's always the one that says to me, do they think they look so good? They don't. Like my husband happens aesthetically to be more comfortable with my natural aging than if I was doing something. Do you think that aesthetic will go out of fashion because now we're seeing what some would term extreme facelifts, for example? You don't have to look too far before you see it flooded on social media when somebody gets something done and people kind of picking it apart and how much it caused and was it worth it and does she look amazing and I'm saying she because it's usually a woman that we're talking about here. I mean, do you see

that going out of fashion? Well, look, I think it's really difficult to age on social media in front of people. People are pretty mean, you know, so it's not about how I look that defines me. You know, yes, I'm always on a TV show or some kind of something, and I'm, you know, like, I don't like the way my neck looks on, you know, depending on the lighting. The great Nora Ephron, who wrote the book, I feel bad about my neck. I think of her often. Yeah, and by the way, I thought she was crazy when she wrote the book because I was 50. My neck was fine.

She was 60, and now that I'm 68, and, you know, some days my neck looks great and other days it doesn't. Today it looks great. Okay, because I'm not on HDTV. By the way, HGTV was invented for football and sports, and it was invented by a guy. Never thought about us women. Well, I do think there is options. And I, you know, there's a lot of women.

I'm not the only one. And I could really tell when someone hasn't had worked on. And I say that with love. You haven't had worked on. Correct. And I like the way you look. And I haven't had worked on. And I see my lines.

I like the way you look. Thank you. And I see my lines in my forehead. And I'm like, okay, it needs a lot. more moisturiser and maybe I'll put a little more blush on to get my attention away from the lines. But I look healthy and I feel good. And, you know, I don't always post all the pictures where I look really bad. I post the ones I look really good. I'm, you know, I'm human. Bobby Brown and her book is called Still Bobby. And we do hope you've been enjoying The Woman's Hour

Guide to Life Conversations so far. I wanted to tell you that the next episode is out tomorrow, only on BBC Sounds. It's all about how to make aging your social. superpower. Here's a clip from it featuring 62-year-old personal trainer and author Jacqueline Houton. It sometimes feels quite challenging to show up as a 62-year-old woman who, you know, I think I clearly look 62 and aware that obviously there's lots of filters and lots of younger people. But I actually feel there's quite a responsibility to that as well, because when we see it, we can be it, we need to have role models as women, women who are thriving at different ages. And I love it when I discover women who are 10, 20 years older than me. And they're doing

really well and they're enjoying their career or they're traveling or whatever it happens to be. To hear the Woman's Hour Guide to Life just go to BBC Sounds. Search for Woman's Hour and in the feed you'll find the Guide to Life episodes. The fourth conversation drops at 8am tomorrow. And if there are topics or issues you want us to cover, then please do get in touch. That's it from me. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. And don't forget to tune in at 10 a.m. on Monday for more Woman's Hour. A new season of Love Me is here. Real stories of real, complicated relationships.

It's not even like a gender. I mean, it's wrapped up in gender, but it's just a really deep self-hate. I think I cried almost every day. I just stood myself on the floor. It's coming on really straight. It's like he's trying to date you all of the sudden. Yeah, and I do look like my mother.

Love Me, available now, wherever you get your podcast. podcasts.