Woman's Hour - What's a feminist city look like? Female doctors and the menopause. Jan Etherington on bickering.

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Glasgow has become the first city in the UK to officially adopt a feminist town-planning-approach. Emma Barnett speaks to the woman behind the proposal Scottish Green Councillor Holly Bruce and the author of ‘Feminist City’ Leslie Kern. What's a feminist city look like and what changes can we expect to see in Glasgow. One in five female doctors say they have considered early retirement due to menopause symptoms. A new report warns that without better support there could be ‘an exodus’ of female doctors from the NHS. Emma talks to Dame Jane Dacre, President of the Medical Protection Society, a not-for-profit protection organisation for healthcare professionals, who conducted the survey. Plus, Dr Nadira Awal, a GP who specialises in Women’s Health. The Treasury has warned of "inevitable" tax rises as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seeks to fill a "black hole" in public finances. They agreed "tough decisions" were needed on tax rises, as well as on spending. The Treasury gave no details but said "everybody would need to contribute more in tax in the years ahead". So how did we get here, what are the changes announced in a couple of weeks' time likely to be and how will they affect you? We hear from two women in the know Claer Barratt the consumer editor at the Financial Times and Dame DeAnne Julius a Fellow in Global Economy and Finance at Chatham House, and a founder member of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Bank of EnglandPlus Jan Etherington the writer of Radio 4’s comedy Conversations from a Long Marriage joins Emma to discuss the highs and lows of bickering.Producer Beverley Purcell Presenter Emma Barnett

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. And while much attention is directed towards the now most senior woman in government, the Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, her choice of language about migrants after telling MPs she wanted to stop the invasion, and her grip on the situation at the Manston Migrant Centre in Kent. There was also another important meeting yesterday afternoon between the new Prime Minister and his new Chancellor. If you've been wondering what will replace so-called

trustonomics, the mini-budget that never was under Liz Truss's short-lived premiership, and how it will affect you, the announcement being worked on now for November 17th is where to place your attention. The Treasury has warned of inevitable tax rises after trusts promised tax cuts in a bid to fill the black hole in public finances and a Treasury source has told the BBC it's going to be, quote, rough.

Today we aim to put you in the picture with the help of two women in the know. And if you want to share your take on what you think should be the way forward or how things have been for you financially since Liz Truss's intervention, do get in touch. The number you need is 84844. Text will be charged your standard message rate on social media or at BBC Women's Hour or email me through our website or send a WhatsApp message or voice note using the number 03700 100 444. It's also striking to note today that the ousting of two prime ministers and the tough economic climate has led to the word permacrisis being named the word of the year by dictionary compilers.

Make of that what you will. Has it entered your lexicon? Let me know. Also on today's programme, with sources in the Treasury saying things will be rough, tensions and bickering levels between couples, family and friends are likely to rise. The comedy drama writer Jan Etherington is on hand to dissect the art of bickering.

And I'm definitely in the market for some of your stories on this. Do you do it? Are you a bickerer? With your partner, with partner with your sibling with friends does it happen in front of you you don't do it and you feel uncomfortable or do you actually quite enjoy having a good look and a good listen to people bickering especially maybe if you don't know them or perhaps even more if you do same numbers text me here 84844 or on social media at BBC Woman's Hour, or send an email through the Woman's Hour website. And also coming up, don't miss an insight into what a feminist town and city planning, how that might look.

We're going to head to Glasgow. Stay with me for that. All to come. But first, the Treasury has warned of inevitable tax rises as the Prime Minister seeks to fill a black hole in public finances. A Treasury source has not put a figure on what they call the fiscal black hole, but the BBC has previously been told it may be around £50 billion. How did we get here? What are the changes likely to be announced in a couple of weeks? And how will they affect you? Those two women in the know join me now. Claire Barrett, Consumer editor at the Financial Times and Dame Diane Julius, a fellow in global economy and finance at Chatham House and a founder member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England.

Good morning to you both. Claire, I'm just going to start with you. A tiny look back. It's not that far. Look back. Trustonomics. What was it briefly? Very briefly.

And are some people still feeling the effects? They certainly are. I think all of the politicians can agree on the problem, Emma. High inflation, the rising cost of living, that's hammering consumers, as we all know, and it's increasing the risk of recession. So Trustonomics was all about creating growth and borrowing to fund that growth. Now, at the mini budget, the Chancellor then, Kwasi Kwarteng, set out huge tax cuts for businesses, for people, controversially, some of the richest people, hoping that that would stimulate growth because businesses would invest, create jobs, we'd all go out and spend. And somehow, that would trickle down to the poorest people in society who perhaps don't pay tax and wouldn't benefit as much from those tax cuts. But the unintended consequences, of course,

because they didn't show their mathematical working of exactly how much would be borrowed, is that the cost of government borrowing shot up immediately. People thought that Britain was a much worse bet to lend money to, all of a sudden much riskier. And then that had all kinds of knock-on consequences, as you say, for our own borrowings, mortgages in particular, which although mortgage rates have come down a little bit since the heady days of the aftermath of the mini-budget, they're still much higher. They were rising higher anyway, but it really accelerated the rate at which they were rising, ironically making the cost of living far worse, pushing it much higher up the income scale than it had been. So trustonomics, therefore, the immediate cost was to people's personal finances and also to the prime minister's career.

Yes. Well, Diane Julius, Dame Diane Julius, good morning to you. The Treasury, what we do know, there's no details on this yet, have said that the Chancellor and the Prime Minister agreed on the principle that those with the broadest shoulders should be asked to bear the greatest burden. What policies does that suggest to you? Well, I think it suggests that there'll be some action on income tax rates, if not rates, then perhaps the ceilings, the thresholds at which people start to pay higher income taxes. Because, of course, income taxes are indeed the tax that

hits those with highest incomes hardest. It might also imply that there'll be something with national insurance taxes. Now, you might think that hits everybody. It doesn't hit the very poorest who, in many cases, don't have much earned income and are perhaps on benefits. So it's another broad tax. And indeed, if the fiscal hole is a pretty deep one, as Claire was just saying, then we do need some broad-based taxes to fill that. Taxes, but also what's going to happen to salaries. I mean, there's some detail that the Times claim that it's been told by the Treasury with unnamed sources in today's paper saying pay rises of 2% across the board in the public sector for 2023 to 2024. Such a rise of 2% would represent a real term cut for nurses, teachers, police officers, soldiers.

It would also be lower than the average public sector pay rise this year, which was around 5%, and had led to threats of strikes. Do you think that's something that will be on the table, to start with you, Deanne? I think it has to be on the table. Public sector wages are a big chunk of expenditure in our country, and rightly so. I think it would be unrealistic to expect the government, the public sector, to match the rate of inflation with whatever it pays public sector people. I mean, that's a typical example of a wage price spiral that really can't be afforded. So I think it's highly likely that there will be a cap of some sort on public sector wage increases. And we have to remember, too, that on average, public sector wages are higher than private sector wages. So it's not the case that they are the lower paid segment of our workforce. Yes, I mean, I'm also minded of it because so many women work in the

public sector. And we're talking with a lens on that. And Claire, your take on that is something that's on the table that may become policy. Well, also, you've got to look at the level of public spending. It's not just people's salaries in the public sector, it's what we're paying as taxpayers to fund the NHS, the police, social services, even asylum services, which have been in the news today. Now, George Osborne, when he was chancellor and introduced austerity, his ratio of cutbacks to tax rises to pay for problems in the economy was about 80-20. 80% came from cutting public services, 20% came from rising taxes. Now, the Financial Times today has used

predictions from analysts that when Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak unveil the budget later this month, that ratio will be more like 50-50. 50% of the cuts coming from public services, 50% of the gains coming from tax rises on all of us. One of the most likely things they're going to do, as Deanne was saying, is freeze tax thresholds, the rate at which we start to pay tax, the rate at which we start to pay higher rates of income tax. Now as our pay rises and certainly people in the private sector are getting bigger pay rises coming through, more of our pay will be dragged into those higher tax bands So by the end of 2027, that could result in an extra 5 billion pounds a year

worth of income taxes being collected without actually changing the rates. Of course, that's a manifesto pledge that there'll be loads to break. But also for female listeners who aren't receiving child benefit anymore because their pay or their partner's pay has gone past 50,000 pounds,

that is a tax threshold that has not changed since 2013. Had that risen in line with inflation, it would be more like £62,000 today. So yet another example of a stealth tax on our wages that is having huge economic consequences with the cost of childcare and all the brilliant reporting that this programme has been doing, showing just how much that is really holding back growth in the economy as parents struggle to pay for it. And, Diane, to come to you, I suppose, to the even bigger picture, are we likely to have a recession forecast now? I mean, where are we with that? Well, I have to remember that the Bank of England forecast a recession in its last quarterly monetary policy report. And there was quite an uproar because I think people didn't have that in their base case of planning at the time.

It's probably still pretty likely, in my view, that the country will suffer a recession. But I think it's going to be a shallow one. It's not going to be a deep one the way we had with the pandemic, or indeed in 2008 with the global financial crisis. I think we have to expect that growth will slow, and it'll probably dip below zero for a couple of quarters over the next year. It'd be very surprising given the big increase in energy prices, especially, that we're facing and the problems that Europe is having. I suspect Germany will have a bigger recession than we will. So you have to put it in context. But a shallow one should not be a disaster.

Yeah, I was going to say, but if it's a shallow one, does that mean it lasts for a shorter amount of time or it's the impact? Well, I think shallower just means the economy doesn't drop as much. Unemployment does not go up as much. And of course, unemployment is very low at the moment. So that the impact on ordinary households is not as great. It doesn't mean that it'll necessarily be a shorter one. It could be three quarters long. It could even be four quarters long,

although I think that probably is stretching it unless we get a new set of bad news from the Ukraine. Yes. Well, again, that wider context. Claire, you've got a message here just to give an example of one of our listeners from Jan. She says, regarding trustonomics, I'm fairly newly retired and widowed. I need to sell my house, move to something smaller and cheaper to run. But the kerfuffle caused by the mini budget seems to have put a complete stop to any chance of my selling. This house is costly to run, so my finances will not stay visible for long. Naturally, I'm a little worried,

though I really feel for people who still have a mortgage. Awful situation all round. As an example, really, of how only a few weeks in power can have an impact and certainly we don't know the full impact on the property market yet because it's still feeding through there are still people completing on purchases when they've locked in lower mortgage rates that they agreed before the mini budget was already announced so the effects of any price drop which pretty much everyone believes we are going to see a correction in property prices, but the great unknown is how much. So you will be able to sell your house,

but you might not be able to sell your house for the price you wanted. And also, listeners like Jan, who are looking at retirement, the effects of all of this have also had an impact on the value of pensions, which often contain lots of gilts, government bonds, as well as investments on the stock market. Both have been falling in recent months, which has made retirement an even more difficult financial equation for many people. So there's lots of different things that we need to juggle. And the impact of trustonomics in the mini budget has really sped up the effects of these financial problems for our money. And it's going to take a while before we figure out the best way out of it.

I mean, Theresa, you read her mind. She just messages, you said that so-called trustonomics has knocked £20,000 from the value of my already modest pension. At the age of 61, I don't have time to recover this. It makes me so angry knowing she has a pension for life following her brief but economically devastating tenure. As I say, from Teresa, thank you very much for that message. Deanne, how long did it take to undo some of the harm that's been caused to some people by that mini budget? Because the markets, obviously, we talk about them bouncing back,

getting back to different levels. And then what we need to hear about the plans coming in only a few days to try and get back on the straight and narrow. I think we are in the midst of quite a turbulent transition. I would say we have speeded up, as Claire said, the transition from a period of virtually free money, very cheap money, very low interest rates, and indeed low inflation, to what I think is going to be the new normal, which will be a constant battle to keep inflation somewhere near the bank's target of 2%, but it'll probably be 3%, 4% a year from now. And interest rates will be somewhere in that range. We need to get to a point where the interest rate in real terms is positive. That means if inflation is 2% the

interest rate, the normal interest rate in the short term would be something like 3, 3.5. That's how it used to be back in the old days when I was on the committee. We still had good growth, but we have been in an unusual economic era and we're now being shocked out of that by the high inflation rate. Do you have faith that the new prime minister can do that, can steady the ship with the littleied a bit. As you say, the markets have come back to where they were before the mini budget for the most part. But it's still going to be a very tricky period because we are in a situation where we do have a big budget gap that has to be moved to a position where it's sustainable, where the deficit can grow just in line with GDP and not faster than GDP. And that's going to require these tough changes, both on the tax front and also on the public expenditure front. So I'm afraid it's going to be a tricky period for the next couple of years. And of course, not just in this country, but in most of Europe. Dame Diane Julius, thank you very much for your insights.

Final word just to you, Clare Barrett. What do you think the appetite is of the British public for shouldering tough times? It sounds like the Treasury and those who have spoken, whether on or off the record, are trying to prepare the British public for these times ahead. And after the things like, it may sound flippant to bring it up, but things like the word perma-crisis being named the word of the year,

not one but two prime ministers having been ousted. Do you think the appetite is there, the responsibility is there? I think that people accept that after the pandemic, the furlough scheme, huge amounts of public expenditure to support people and companies, there was going to have to be some kind of payback. But I think people feel very strongly that it should fall on those who have the means to pay. The cost of living crisis, you've done so much reporting about how that is affecting the poorest. The politicians are saying we will protect the most vulnerable when we're taking away energy help and looking at whether the level of benefits will increase for those on fixed incomes and pensions. So I would expect the tax rises to

fall more squarely on those who are earning higher incomes. The big question is how long will that have to go on for? It's uncomfortable for a Conservative government at a period where tax is at the highest rate for around 50 years to be thinking of raising them further. But the consequences of borrowing and not funding those tax cuts and going for the trustonomics approach has now been proven not to work. In fact, it's made things a lot worse for most people. So sadly, I think we're going to have to suck it up, Emma. We will keep talking. Claire Barrett, Consumer Editor at the Financial Times. Thank you. And

of course, if you want to know a bit more about so-called trustonomics, where it began, where it went wrong, what happens next, you can listen to a walk on the supply side at 11 o'clock coming up here on Radio 4. So a bit of joined-up Radio 4 thinking for you there and a bit more detail perhaps on that because a lot of you who have been in touch about that side of things are still feeling the effects, which I wanted to make sure we brought to the fore.

Some of you also getting in touch about something my next guest feels incredibly strongly about, which is the art of bickering. Richard Curtis, the screenwriter and film director, has said of my next guest feels incredibly strongly about, which is the art of bickering. Richard Curtis, the screenwriter and film director, has said of my next guest and her work, sitcom is what most marriages are really like, repetitive and ridiculous, and Jan's words are some of the best ever written on the subject.

He's talking about Jan Etherington, the woman who writes Radio 4's comedy drama Conversations From a Long Marriage, starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allen. It's been commissioned for a fourth series and scripts of the series can be found in a new book of the same name. But its success and resonance has got us thinking, what are the ingredients of a long and mostly happy marriage or union of two people?

In the case of Jan's couple, Joanna and Roger, bickering is certainly a major feature. was very embarrassed. She recently lost her husband. Oh, that's sad. To another woman. And Fang was his dog, really. She can't handle him. That's obvious. And she said she saw me putting sunscreen on your back and got quite tearful because she hasn't got anyone to do it for her. Oh, please tell me you didn't.

Only took a minute. Seconds after I walked into the sea, you were fondling a stranger? She wasn't a stranger. You had a chat with her. When? You said we were dog people when Fang came over to stranger? She wasn't a stranger. You had a chat with her. When? You said we were dog people when Fang came over to us. That's not a chat. And it wasn't a fondle. It was a public service. The sun was right overhead. Even I was starting to swelter. Look, she's just a lonely

divorcee. Hitting on married men? She didn't hit on me. You wouldn't recognise a hit if Joe Root whacked you with a cricket bat. What about you and that kite surfer? What? You went straight up to him while he was folding up his equipment. I watched you, hand on hip, flinging your hair back, laughing. I was asking him about the tides. And if there were any rips...

Yeah, right. I don't know this beach. He does. He helped me out. And I helped Maria out. It's nothing like that. And you flaming well know it. People are looking at us. We'll let them. That's just one example. And others, when they start bickering over the right way to wave goodbye to another couple who's just been for dinner and then segging immediately into squabbling, overloading the dishwasher. Jan Etherington, good morning. Good morning, Emma. Is it fun to write those scenes? You can imagine with those two, it's absolutely fabulous.

It's not really like work I used, absolutely fabulous, which is Joanna Loveless. And you did, Joanna Loveless. Exactly. The two of them, just watching those two on the microphones, they do flirt and spar and banter. And it was very funny in lockdown because we had to film them in separate studios,

but we could actually film them. And within seconds, they could see each other and they started flirting. Even though they had to kiss their own hands instead of each other, it seemed to work. They're great. It's lovely. Having asked our audience and some of our listeners have been in touch about bickering because we should say,

you know, there are difficult times at the moment and people are having squabbles and that some will be more serious but the the point of bickering is that it's over trivial matters very it's very very much trivial matters it's and also you get sort of varieties of bickering don't you the buck passing bicker which is if you hadn't put that cup down there i wouldn't have knocked it over you know so you're passing the buck and then there's the hissing one when you're with other people or the glare bickering what do you think about bickering in front of other people I think it's really really unpleasant I hate sitting around a table when some couples start arguing about something sometimes

you can't see it coming sometimes they're just tetchy to start with but I remember being invited to a supper with very old friends and they decided to invite the new neighbours in who nobody knew but it was quite sweet and there was a little bit of a pause and then suddenly the chap suddenly turned around and said funny thing my wife's got thighs of

different sizes ow did you kick me she'd obviously just gone stop it what an unusual thing to feel like you wanted to share with a group of strangers Apparently she'd been a tennis player but you know we got out of that when she was practically in tears but it was about

awkwardness that sort of thing but you know who would want to be part of the invitation when George and Martha were fighting in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor. And he's saying, I see you up to your neck in cement. No, up to your nose, because that's quieter. And you're sitting there as they were.

Yes. It's a quiet drink, wondering what's coming next. But I think that's going over the edge into serious fights. Exactly. But there's an energy for some couples when they are doing it alone. It gives them something. It does, and it's often about passionate couples because I really don't trust people who say they never have a crossword

because you need passion to bicker and you need to care about something enough and the other person. And you need to know they can take it. I mean, in the clip that you played about roger putting i mean that is a serious lapse putting sunscreen and later on she actually gets really angry she said because he said well you know it was just just cream cream you mean you didn't squirt it it was actually you had to massage her back so it's quite an intimate thing that he was guilty of. Actually, she did drove off, left him in West Wittering,

although she did come back, but only so she could enjoy driving him in two hours, solid silence all the way back home. Are you someone who uses your own relationship to paint from? I think I would be stupid if I didn't because everybody draws from other sources and not just mine but friends and lovely anecdotes where people just suddenly say, you know, he's changed his routine. He's putting his shoes on before he comes downstairs. Little things like that, the minutiae of married life. Dishwasher stacking, as you said, is a great source of humour isn't it but everything that you can

argue about and bicker about I think every couple has and I don't think that's wrong because the opposite and the other side would be seething resentment which is not a good idea and do you think it's actually part of for some people what can keep them together yes and there's always if you're really impassionately in love as Roger and Joanna Yes, and there's always, if you're really passionately in love, as Roger and Joanna's characters are, there's the making up, isn't there? But I think it's always a good idea to let the sun go down on your wrath because if somebody is ready to snuggle up after a fight at night

and say, oh, and the other person isn't, then the olive branch you've offered gets snapped in half and thrown out the window and it gets even worse through the night. Best to wait and see who makes the tea in the morning. Oh, okay. That flies in the face of some of the advice that's sometimes given. Don't expect too much at night. It's funny. It's not just couples, though.

There's a message here. Myself and my friend always bicker. We're currently on our yearly trip to Pembroke. So far there's been a long discussion about him being unable to follow directions and refusing to accept his mistake. He even keeps bringing up the issue again just to wind me up. I wrote Ali was wrong

in the sand to make myself feel better says Sian. And that's a couple of friends. Yes but you have to be very more careful with friends don't you somehow than husbands and wives. I always argue it's about driving because men never ask for directions. I'm sorry it is arguments about driving because men never ask for directions. I'm sorry, it is a gender thing.

Men never ask for directions and women ask for directions before they even need to. Well, let's just check. No. And so that's a very different thing. But I think always there's arguments about that and there's sort of traditional arguments putting the bins out and all the usual stuff.

And fundamentally, that's healthy. I think you've always got to go for nipping it in the bud, basically, and then rather than letting it get into a real big fight, which is when you've got things like Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas in Wars of the Roses. I hate the way you eat. I hate the way you breathe. You know, that's gone beyond a bicker because they're hanging on to a chandelier and it's about to fall. Yes, that's quite a dramatic one, isn't it? It's quite a dramatic one, yes.

And what do you think it is about people wanting to laugh in your case at the comedy that you've written about this? Why do you think they want to hear some of it almost again? Yeah, because it gives them sort of validation of what's happening with their marriage. I think it's the empathy. I think I want to write conversations as an aspirational show about marriage because I was so tired of older women being portrayed for miserable,

tetchy divorces and often dementia sufferers. They don't even have parts for positive, strong, funny women. I couldn't find any, so I wrote one. And I think when you have that character as an optimist and as a warm and passionate person, if people are listening and they're going through a tough period or fighting with each other, to hear these two going through a similar thing

and then redeeming it at the end and having... and laughing, because laughter is the huge therapy in marriage, sometimes at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons, sometimes only makes it worse. But quite often, if they end up laughing, the audience will too. And I do make sure that they laugh at each other, with each other, because often in comedy, somebody comes out with a stonkingly wonderful line and the rest of the cast just carry on. I think Joe and Roger always acknowledge something funny that the other one has said and it often eases the tension and takes away the pressure.

Well, we've got a message from Jules who says, I'm just making chilli jam for Christmas with women's hour as an essential ingredient. We seem to bicker much more now we're older, in our 60s, than we ever did when we were young. But we do say we're doing it and we try to stop. And there's a few other messages saying it's quite addictive, once it is part of your repertoire.

And it's usually about the fact that you're fed up about something. And the other, you know, somebody sits in there very happily and then you suddenly say, I wish you wouldn't pick your teeth. Or could you stop with the grunty sighs? I did that with Roger and Joanna. He said grununty sighs it sounds like some Damon Runyon character does he hang out with nicely nicely and Harry the horse she said every time you sit in a chair you have a grunty sigh

he's perfectly happily sitting there with a glass of wine but she was straight in there the expulsions of someone else the sinuses I mean I think I could write a whole book on the sinuses of others oh and bedtime the snoring.

Yes, all those traditional things. But it is actually those. Although I'm going to say, sorry, I'm nearly seven months pregnant now. I think my snoring is absolutely up there. So I shouldn't just, we shouldn't put that just towards the men. No, it's not towards the chaps. I can tell you because my sister pushed, this is another argument. My sister pushed a bed out that I was sharing a room with her

because I was snoring in a ski resort. She couldn't stop me, so she just pushed the bed out on the balcony. Equality for women snorers. There's another one here. Morning, Emma. My husband and I wake up bickering. Our family say we should be on Gogglebox. That's one from Carol.

And one here, though, Nikki is a spectator. My husband and daughter, aged 25, bicker frequently and it winds me up. Moments later they're chilled and friendly again with each other. When I'm left wound up, tight and stressed out, usually happens around the dinner table, probably healthy for them, but not for me.

That's very common. I used to have big fights with my daughter, who's now a mother herself. But we had big fights when she was a teenager. My husband and son would be quaking because we were really going at it. And then we'd just say, bye, we're going to TK Maxx. What? And suddenly it was all fine with us, but they took it very differently.

Yeah, the audience. So we talked about it with friends, didn't we, if you were sitting around a table. If your family members, especially children as well, can take things quite literally and then worry. Oh oh that's the thing you have to really watch bickering with children who are young and you say right i'm leaving that is a big big serious thing no we don't always want we don't always want the serious janet you provide us with much of the light so thank you for that with conversations from a long marriage with joanna lumley you were hearing that

clip there and roger allen it's lovely to talk to you, though, the woman behind it and why you wanted to do it. And, you know, with bickering, perhaps, although there are very serious things going on as we've been discussing the economy and how we're going to fill that black hole, it also can give a bit of light in the middle of it all, can't it? Thank you, Emma. I shall keep doing it.

Thank you to you and to your messages to still coming in about friendships as well but someone advising here don't get into doing it once you do it it's it's like a drug and you cannot stop someone who really doesn't like it indeed i just get that name for you is brenda who's not very happy about it at all but so it continues keep your messages coming in it's lovely to hear from you with your experiences 84844 is the number if you would like to text or you can get in touch through the Woman's Hour website. Now, brain fog, forgetfulness and anxiety, not things you want to be grappling with as you treat the sick.

But for some menopausal women, this is their reality as they continue with their job of being doctors. A new poll has revealed that one in five female doctors say they've considered early retirement due to their menopause symptoms and of those who took part 36% had considered reducing their hours. This comes at a time when the NHS is facing a growing shortage of doctors and staff across the board and the question becomes what can be done to stop these women leaving the profession or thinking that they should. Well let me talk now to Dame Jane Dacre, president of the Medical Protection Society. That's the not-for-profit protection organisation

for healthcare professionals which conducted this survey. And Dr Nadira Awal, a GP who specialises in women's health and the founder of Paws & Co Healthcare. She decided to stop being a partner at her GP practice because of her menopause symptoms. Warm welcome to you both. Jane, if I may start with you, that figure then, was it higher than you were thinking? I know it was quite a small group that came back to you, but it does seem to have caught people's attention.

Yes, it was a small group. When a small group of people all say the same thing, it becomes quite a powerful message. I think that the lack of recognition was a surprise to me, because having been in the health service for many years, one assumes that we just all get on with it. And I think the recognition that actually some women are having difficulty and need support to stay in the workforce is very important. And the NPS likes to or wants to support its more than 300,000 members. So this is something that we feel needs to be raised, that people need to have their awareness raised so that we can do something about it. And just a bit more detail on what you were told by those members who said they were considering early retirement. What sort of issues were they trying to deal with?

Well, I think the issues of coming to work and working in a tricky environment, and the NHS is becoming more and more tricky, particularly for general practice, when you're not feeling very well. So if you have menopausal symptoms like anxiety, depression, poor concentration, brain fog, dizziness, insomnia, you don't feel as if you're bringing your best self to work. Now, women are making credible doctors. They're very conscientious. And so it added it adds to the stress if they can't feel that they're being listened to or recognised for the problems that they're going through. But the way that you describe that, I recognise it's a list. Not every one of those symptoms is going to affect each woman that you're talking about. But it would also sound like they perhaps shouldn't be at work? Well, that's a very difficult one, because actually 50% or coming up to 50% of the medical profession are female. 77% of the people that work in the NHS are female. And there is a workforce crisis. So actually supporting people through difficult symptoms and making it more conducive to them giving of their best in

the work environment is something that of course it's an obvious thing to do yes and we you know caring for those who care for us but but I suppose my question is if you don't feel you're able to to function like you want to it's not like many jobs is it you are trying to look after people so it's that line of you want people to know about this, but you don't want them to be scared to go and see a female doctor who may be suffering. No, absolutely. And all doctors are registered with the General Medical Council

in this country, and we have a duty of care to patients. So if our symptoms and problems are impacting on our ability to care for our patients, then clearly that's something that each doctor needs to take account of. However, most of these symptoms are the sorts of symptoms that doctors would just plough on through. Which is what? Giving them more support is what they need let me bring in uh dr nadira awal who is a gp and i mentioned you decided to stop being a partner because of your menopause symptoms tell us about that so i think um for me um it was multifactorial that leaving my gp partnership and the menopause definitely did contribute significantly to it um I one of the

main symptoms I had was brain fog and as Jane mentioned these the symptoms they can creep up on you as well and I felt I was too young I was 40 at the time um so attributed it to sort of life stresses children homeschooling working through the pandemic um but I felt actually um I became a bit of a slower consulter I was taking more regular breaks to try and manage that GP consultation in 10 minutes and it's quite difficult but I'm quite lucky is that I was able to touch type make keynotes so to avoid errors and avoid mistakes from happening, and recapping with the patients. My own personal journey has helped me understand and have more empathy with my patients. So supporting them through their own menopause, trying to combine

home life and work life, and the challenges that that they face it's motivated me to raise awareness and actually educate the general public on the menopause and that sometimes you can work and have go through the menopause and continue to do the role that you want to achieve to do and not have that um that ramifications of kind of why are you expressing your menopause symptoms. Well, I think, you know, very appreciative. We all are, of your honesty. But there are a lot of women who wouldn't even say any of this because they don't want to be seen, especially, you know,

fighting for careers to try to keep going with things, to get to a position like partner as well. They wouldn't want to be seen that they couldn't be coping. Absolutely. And we really do always do our best and we go above and beyond for our patients um even if from all age age groups and all genders um but we don't want to be seen to be struggling we are doctors we want to achieve the best that we can do to provide that patient care. Yes, well, there's a high pressure situation. It is. And just to give an insight from the position of the NHS as an employer, this is Caroline Waterfield.

What she has to say, she's director of development and employment at NHS Employers, which is part of the NHS Confederation. She says of the 1.3 million people employed in the NHS in England, women make up over three in four of its workforce. The guidance we've produced with trade unions sets out principles and advice for NHS organisations, line managers and individuals. It advises on the importance of open conversations for colleagues to be encouraged to speak about their experiences and connect with others, to provide training to line managers

and ensuring that the menopause is incorporated in broader approaches to inclusion and staff experience within their organisations. She goes on to say there's been huge steps forward in the last couple of years, lots of positive action, but more to do. And I wondered, having put out this survey, Jane, to come back to you, what are you looking for now? Well, one of the big things for me, for women in general in the workforce, is increased flexibility, so that there isn't this culture of presenteeism, that you have to be at work sitting at your desk. And certainly the pandemic has shown us that it is

possible to be a good doctor and to do some things remotely. But I think the other is to support people like Nadira to pass the message to both colleagues and to patients about the effective management of the menopause. And these women need to be cut a little bit of slack. The NHS was set up in 1948 for a predominantly male workforce, particularly amongst its doctors. Well, as that evolves and more and more women come into the workforce, as your correspondent from NHS employers said, we need to start to redefine the workforce so it is supportive to those large numbers of women to keep them working to their best level for as long as possible. What does that mean though? And the idea that you've got to cut women some slack in the

workforce in this way? It means that there are simple things that can be done, like having a workforce that is sympathetic to women who might be going through the menopause, that might allow them, for example, to go outside to cool down, just a simple pragmatic thing that might recognise if they've had a night of broken sleep, that maybe they will want to have some time out during the day and then come back later so it's really just being sympathetic to the needs of a workforce that was different from the workforce that the NHS was designed for. Nadira does that tally with with what your experience would have been and how how would that have worked? practice? Absolutely. I think there is a big taboo of talking about the menopause, not only in society, we are getting better, but also in the NHS. And there's a stigma for doctors to speak up and admit that they're struggling.

You know, they may not want to ask for flexible working because of staff shortages and the pressures that their peers may have. But I'm also just imagining like you know I'm thinking my local GP now and you design an environment where the idea just is what we've heard you cut women more slack or some slack that they weren't having how would that go down with your your male colleagues would it work? So it's quite difficult I think for for us as GPs, we've always tried to make things as fair as possible across the board. And that means we still see the same number of patients every day. It's not that female GPs see less. We still do the same workload,

but we just adapt our surgeries to fit in more breaks. And it may take longer and it may be a little bit slower, but certainly we do not have a gender discrimination. So do you think women would want this? I think a lot of women and a lot of my GP colleagues would want flexible working. They want to be able to work from home, for example. Don't men want that as well? I think all G men want that as well i think all gps want want that they want to be able to have that flexible working to be able to work from home to be able to work in

their own environment um there is a the men also there is the male menopause as well which um is often unheard about middle-aged men there's a high risk of suicide as well in middle-aged men. And we need to be able to support the men while they go through this. So I think it's about equality and diversity as well. And it's not about, you know, because I know going back to the figures here, we've got far more women we're talking about who are working in the NHS as well. So I recognise there's a disproportionateate problem but it's just trying to understand how we go ahead with that and lucy says my menopause symptoms were taken far more seriously by my gp a few years younger than me once she herself had hit the menopause female gps are crucial to the understanding and empathy about menopause and just a final word to you jane

because of course we've also been thinking about the economy this morning, we've had some messages about that, and how pay will be affecting things as well, and how it could be in the in the public sector. You know, is there the appetite now post some of the things we've been through lately, we're not fully anywhere by any stretch through COVID, but through the sort of lockdown side of things? Is there an appetite to do you think reform the NHS culturally? I would hope that the NHS would recognise that it's now certainly for doctors nearly 50% women for all NHS workers it's 77% women and I would have thought that recognition of the different needs of a workforce that is evolving is a really good idea because we want to keep people enjoying their jobs, staying for longer, contributing their enormous skills for as long as possible. So any kind of reform that improves the

well-being of the whole workforce, men and women, is absolutely worth looking into. I mean, there's a very strong message here. There's two, in fact, just to finish this discussion on these. I wish to remain anonymous. I'm a senior nurse practitioner, 37 years of experience in the NHS. I experienced horrendous menopausal symptoms. I asked my employers for flexible working. Basically, I wanted to do late shifts due to my persistent insomnia

as well as other horrendous symptoms. Male non-clinical managers completely ignored my request, forced me to work part-time which has subsequently had an effect on my pension. The reason I wish to remain anonymous is because of the backstabbing culture within the NHS and no wonder experienced staff are leaving. We are not looked after. Maggie has just written in with a simple sentence. I've got no idea if she's got any connection to the medical world or to the NHS. If I was an employer, this is off the back of our conversation, I wouldn't employ women and I'm a woman. That's what Maggie has to say, Jane,

after hearing that. And that's quite a stark response. Final word to you, Jane? Well, if the NHS didn't employ women, we we'd only have we'd have less than 30 of the workforce so i don't know who's going to be looking after us well there is that but i suppose it's just that that prompting of that's what some women are concerned about giving if you talk about this you then open yourself up to to those sorts of uh judgments as well but we're very grateful you brought the findings to us to talk to us about what you've been hearing. And also to you, Dr. Nadira Arwal, Dame Jane Dacre there, Dr. Nadira Arwal, who's had experience of this and made some changes in her own life. Coming to changes, though, Glasgow, we're told, has become the first city in the UK to adopt a feminist town planning approach into official policy after a motion was unanimously backed by councillors at Glasgow City Council last week. The motion for the feminist city plan will see

the city commit to making women central to all aspects of planning, public realm design, policy development and budget. But what discernible difference could that make? How could the city feel and look different? Joining me now, Holly Bruce, the Scottish Green Councillor for Langside in Glasgow, who proposed the motion, and Lesley Kern, Professor of Geography and Environment at Mount Allison University, whose book, Feminist City, Claiming Space in a Man-Made World, inspired Holly in the first place. Welcome to you both. Holly, I'll come to you. Why did you put this forward? What was the drive?

So people in Glasgow will be unsurprised to hear that the infrastructure and the public services are really not up to scratch. And that's partly due to not having enough funding, but also due to the fact that the people that are elected in our city have been men for so many years. Before I was an elected councillor I took part in some feminist research and with a program of women all under the age of 30 who looked at issues affecting young women in the city and we developed a report that looked at academic research as well as empirical research and it found that young women in the city increasingly felt unsafe and they felt that the services were inaccessible

and unaffordable to them and inconvenient. So that's the research that, as well as what you were reading from Lesley, has made you think about this and trying to put this forward. And you did put it forward with success. Lesley, what is feminist town planning? Feminist town planning is an approach that uses planning as a tool for improving gender equity in a context where, as Holly noted, women's views have often been left out or seen as secondary and less important in planning. So it acknowledges that there are gender differences in how men and women use and experience the city.

They have different needs in terms of services and spaces. And it attempts to account for and make up for inequalities by providing more inclusive services and infrastructure. And what does that mean if we get it down to lights, roads, sizes of things? Yeah, I mean, street lighting is always an issue, but it goes beyond lighting. There are accessibility and mobility issues that are really important. So making it possible to move through the city while doing caregiving duties, such as looking after babies and children. Still, women do the majority of this this work as well as working outside of the home and the city was never set up with that in mind, right? It was set up with the male breadwinner in mind. So the way that women juggle those responsibilities is not really well considered. So

could be about making spaces more physically accessible, it could be thinking about the route and timing of a bus. Does it help a woman get the kids to school and get her to work? It means public spaces. Are there clean and safe toilets, places to sit? Lots of different reasons for people to use the space throughout the day and evening. All of these are considerations to think about, you know, what would this city look like? I mean, I have never had more people come up to me during lockdown and talk to me about, more women, I should say, about toilets when toilets were closed and we were going on walks.

It was, could we, could Women's Hour, could any of us do anything? Please, now, you know, urgent and, you know, without smiling faces, but sometimes with smiling faces. So it is an important one. For you, Holly, talking about Glasgow, what will people see or feel differently once this starts? Well, I can't speak for every woman. I'm a cis white, able bodied woman. And as Lesley said there, women have a range of experiences. And she gave really good examples of increased lighting better public toilets

and better public transport but what my motion sets out to do is actually change the structure and the system so um it will embody it will embed a feminist planning approach into the city development plan which is the main planning policy document that the council uses in any decision making so that's on new housing developments on improving public realm design on anything to do that with planning in the city so it really will make structural and systemic change and it will take years I'm not going to lie it's going to take a few years for it to be developed and it'll take a few years for it to be put in practice but I'm hoping that this will

be the start of that journey the start of the journey to have women at the heart of that of how i think women should be at the heart at the very start so that was another thing that the the motion called for is and better data gathering so um one of the first things i noticed when i was elected in may was the inconsistencies in our consultation processes, not getting enough demographic data, knowing exactly what women are saying about things, about policy and about improving services. So data gathering is a big thing. And that impacts the impact assessments, which has to be done in any policy that's put forward to any committee in the council. We have to measure the impact in terms of climate, in terms of equality.

But if we don't have the local data, if we don't know what women are saying, how are we able to measure that impact? And what about cost? Again, the mind doesn't stray far from the economy at the moment. And we were talking about this right at the beginning of the programme. Is there going to be an increased cost for this? I mean, budgets are constrained across the board and it's a really very real concern.

And it goes back to councils being chronically underfunded. There's always a lot of national interest and national budget making, but rarely does that go back to councils. What I would say is that the action in this motion is about policy change. Well, I know, but there are those who could argue it's not about being underfunded, it could be better structured and it could be better used.

Absolutely. And that's why I hope when we've now got 10 Greens in the City Council, that we'll make a change to the next budget. But it's going to be a really horrendous... I'm just thinking if you're turning more lights on, I know it's not just all about lights, if you're building new things,

if you're tearing up pathways and making them wider, is there, and I know it's going to take some time, but do you actually have the funds to do, as you've been describing, a sort of feminist approach to town planning? Well, especially in terms of pavements and road accessibility and cycling infrastructure there's a lot of funding going into that just now because of the climate emergency so Sustrans is one of the main

funders in Scotland and there's already loads of plans and funding going into that. In terms of lighting there's loads of creative ways we can look at that. There are loads of different companies popping up with renewable options that are sensitive to biodiversity and things like that as well. So one of the campaigns I was involved in was lighting up the public parks, well, certain elements of the public parks, but we wanted to make sure that that was sensitive to animals and to humans as well. Leslie, to come back to you, are there examples from around the world where we've seen cities do this very well?

Absolutely. Probably the most famous example is Vienna, which implemented a gender town planning approach a couple of decades ago. And as Holly mentioned, the first most important thing was to gather data to actually do comprehensive surveys of how women and men use the city. And coming out of that data came a large scale plan for a relatively new neighborhood called Aspern, where not only are there symbolic elements like streets and plazas named after women instead of men, which is pretty rare in most cities, honestly. But women designed housing complexes with little changes that make a big difference, like a place to store the pram, windows that overlook the children's play area, close connections to transportation, schools and kindergartens. And, you know, as I say, that went into place a couple of decades ago, and it's still a thriving aspect of Vienna's town planning and Barcelona is a city that is also more recently engaging in this everyday life approach, thinking about how the

decisions that are made will impact women and men differently and figuring out how can we make sure this doesn't harm women and their day-to-day lives. Thank you for that. Lesley Kern, Professor of Geography and Environment at Mount Allison University, author of the book Feminist City, claiming space in a man-made world. Holly, when are we going to see some change then in Glasgow, just for those who live there listening?

Well, I hope very soon. There's a particular thing happening in my ward at the moment where there's a huge roundabout that's got lots of room for cars, but not for people. So I'm hoping in the next couple of years that will be funded and the plans working with women will happen very, very soon. But as long as I'm elected, it will happen. All will be OK, ever the politician.

Holly, thank you very much. Holly Bruce, Scottish Green Councillor for Langside in Glasgow. I have to say, our previous discussion is still eliciting messages from you about the number of women working in the NHS, specifically as doctors who, one in five female doctors, have said they've considered early retirement due to menopause symptoms. It's a new study, a new poll, I should say. And one from Deborah says, interesting that cutting the slack, because that was a suggestion made by the woman who put the poll together,

cut women some slack being doctors, can apply to those in better paid positions in the NHS. Doctors and admin staff potentially can't see this applying to jobs such as healthcare assistant in A&E. Angela, working from home, one of the requests again, but working more flexibly for GPs. As a teacher, I'd love to have worked from home. Get a grip and do the job. Ruth in Chichester, good morning. Hello, Emma. I love Woman's Hour. We need to have this same conversation about the teaching profession and menopause. It really doesn't mix. I had to leave this year. I'm sorry to hear that, Ruth. A message here about COVID, long COVID and being menopausal. This is from Lou. She says the two blur and it's proven difficult to separate them.

However, I've had to step down from midwifery. I was a third year student, very close to qualification, but the combination of the symptoms made me an untenable midwife. What has caused me most pain, though, is the shame I felt when I left. I was shamed by many people I worked with, which has left me truly traumatised. Women and getting older is proving horrendous. That's from Lou's position in Vantage Point, who sent in a note, as I say, on email. Dr Deborah Judge has also messaged to say this is an odd discussion how does the nhs adapt its systems to accommodate and support experienced wise women doctors to function

optimally at work decent admin support would help we don't need to be cut slack we need equality again more responses to that thank you very much for all of your responses today across this across bickering also about the economy and a lot of you still feeling the effects of a short-lived premiership of Liz Truss, the third woman to take the top job. But now, of course, into the hands of Rishi Sunak, it goes with the economy very much front and centre of people's minds. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby.

It's a long story, settle in. Available now.