AI and women’s jobs, Therapy speak and girls, Céline Dion's comeback

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Decisions made in Washington can affect your portfolio every day, but what policy changes should investors be watching? Listen to Washington-wise, an original podcast for investors from Charles Schwab to hear the stories making news in Washington right now. Host Mike Townsend, Charles Schwab's managing director for legislative and regulatory affairs, takes a non-partisan look at the stories that matter most to investors, including policy initiatives for retirement savings, taxes and trade, inflation concerns, the federal reserve, and how regulatory developments can affect companies, sectors, and even the entire market. Mike and his guests offer their perspective on how policy changes could affect what you do with your portfolio. Download the latest episode and follow at Schwab.com/Washingtonwise or wherever you listen. How many streaming subscriptions do you have? Is it the same for your business? Avoid it by having all your business on one platform. Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's oduo.com. Investing with Schwab is like spending a Saturday at a great farmer's market. You can fill your reusable tote with a bit of everything. Maybe you go for some free range self-directed investing. Or perhaps you pick up a few farm fresh trades while you peruse. You can even get help from a dedicated advisor. That's full service wealth management. Mix, match and change your mind whenever you want. Because at Schwab, you can invest your way. No matter your goals or appetite for investing, Schwab has everything you need all in one place. Visit Schwab.com to learn more. [MUSIC PLAYING] Hello, I'm Nula McGoveron and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to the program. Well, you will have heard the news this morning about AI. Arguing existing laws are ill-equipped to address the technology's speed of growth. Well, we want to speak to some of the women whose jobs have already been significantly impacted in both negative and positive ways by AI. That is coming up. Also, I've been reading a fascinating book. It's called Girlhood Translated. The author is Dr. Garfinkel Kroll, a psychiatrist, who says that when girls come to her these days, they announce they have conditions like ADHD, OCD, anxiety, or depression, but they've already self-diagnosed before walking into her office. We're going to speak about why medicalized language has become so widespread among girls and also here advice for parents to help their daughters in what she calls an age of therapy to speak and self-diagnosis. And I do wonder if this is something that you have encountered, perhaps with the girl in your life, the use of medical terminology, whether that be toxic or trauma, for example, which has given you pause. Perhaps you find it difficult to navigate that jargon. What do you do with it when confronted with it? Or maybe you have a question from my guest who's been thinking about this very deeply. You can text the program, the number is 84844 on social media where at BBC Women's Hour, or you can email us through our website for WhatsApp message or a voice note, the number is 0370010444, or on most smart speakers, you can say Alexa, ask BBC sounds to send a comment. Also today, Spain's National Soccer Federation will fund egg freezing. Is this a win for female athletes? Or money towards messaging them to delay motherhood? We'll discuss. Plus, we go to Paris. The singer Celine Dion had a triumphant emotional return in her comeback concert in the city of light. You may remember, she was diagnosed with a rare illness four years ago. Well, we're going to hear from two women who were at the Celine extravaganza. That is all coming up. But let me begin, as I mentioned, some of the world's leading AI bosses, artificial intelligence bosses, have issued stark warnings in the past days about the catastrophic risks that the technology might pose. Now, there is research that suggests there's a real gender gap when it comes to AI. Women are less likely to use it, likely to feel more skeptical about it. When it comes to jobs, women are also disproportionately affected by the impact of AI at the moment. The Trade Union Conference is debating this subject this week. One resolution calls for greater worker representation when it comes to the introduction of AI with particular emphasis on how it might negatively impact jobs traditionally held by women. Administrative jobs, for example, are statistically more likely to be done by females. We'll join in me to discuss how AI is affecting their working lives. We have Bethan, who works in hospitality, and also Ella Wicks, who works at the University of Oxford. You're both very welcome to the programme. Very topical, of course. You'll be seeing in all the headlines and conversations over the weekend about AI. But let me talk about you, your life, Bethan. AI had a really big impact on a recent role that you held at a university. Tell us all about it. Hi, good morning. Yeah, so I worked at university as first-line IT support. So it was like an in-person role, and we'd have students come up with IT issues, and we'd either help them on the spot for anything we could help with. So that was stuff like Wi-Fi, passwords, stuff like that. Anything a bit more complex. We would field over to further support. A lot of the time that we found we'd have people come up about unrelated IT stuff. They just didn't know where they were going. We'd have to help them with that as well. But a few months into my role, they decided they were getting rid of the entire first-line support and replacing it with an AI kiosk. So me and my entire team lost our jobs because of it. Just like that. And how did that feel? I mean, were you told, hey, your job is going to be replaced or you're going to be replaced by AI? Yeah, so we had heads up. The whole thing took about four months from when we first heard about it to our contract's ending. We fought it. A lot of people just decided that it was never to pull and found out the job straight away. Me and my partner, who I worked with on the same team, we stayed till the end and fought it. But in the end, it happened. Which, how did that feel? I mean, it's so interesting that the place that you're in, that technology pushed you out. Yeah, I mean, it wasn't a great feeling. Up until that point, I'd been kind of a neutral about AI. I hadn't really heard much about it. It was 2024. But I think after that-- and then just going forwards, it's been wonderful. I mean, obviously, because me and my partner both had the same job. And then we lost it at the same time, 2 AI. We lost our flat. Then we were living at the time. We both had to move in with our respective parents. It's not been a great time. And how do you feel about AI now? Because you've been bombarded with it no doubt over the past few days if you've been looking at any of the news? I mean, partially because of what happens with my job at the university, but also just because of its environmental impacts, the way it's treating creative stuff like that. I'm very anti-AI now. I won't use it for anything. I try and take it off brows as anything wherever I can. I just think it's a terrible thing. It can be used for good things, I'm sure. But I think most of its uses now are just not good for us as a species. So interesting. Well, let me bring in-- and thank you for sharing that pattern. Let me bring in Ella. So your route, I understand, into AI wasn't a conventional tech career. How did you end up using it in your job? So yeah, I never had a straight line of a career. I actually trained as a model maker when I was at university. And I worked for a short while in film and theatre as a prop and specialist costume maker. And shortly after starting that role, I realized my job wasn't sculpting and molding and fabricating as I'd been trained to do. It was mostly digital sculptors that would then 3D print things. And I would be sampling and finishing 3D prints, which I didn't enjoy very much at all. So I decided to move career after that, moved into an admin role at the University of Oxford. And then I saw AI coming pretty quickly, and I thought, ah, here is another new technology that could completely change the way my career can go. Let me get on top of this one this time. And let me learn how to use it fast. And so I started exploring, experimenting with it very early on, and realized that I found it massively helpful in my role and in my job. And I was given the freedom to choose where to use it and choose how it could support me in my role, which I found a massive freedom. And I found it helped me enjoy my role better and be better at it. OK, so what sort of specific things could AI help you with? Because I think we're all kind of fascinated with, is there a way to simplify the mess and the muddle that our day-to-day lives can be? So one of the first things I did was when I started at Oxford, the Oxford tone of voice was not my jam, it's still not. It's not how I speak. And I would agonize over emails. I would be like, does this sound right? Am I talking in the right way? And just passing something through an AI tool very early on, I was like, oh, this is really helpful, not even in speeding me up particularly, but just in removing a mental load, in making it just feel slightly better. easier for me and it allowed me to spend my time on things that I enjoyed more where my time was more valuable. But now I'm not in the same role. I'm actually an AI consultant in the AI competency center. So my current role very much wouldn't exist without AI and I use it for everything. For helping me organize the talks I'm going to do, collate all of my thinking, organize my diary, do a lot of the work that I don't necessarily enjoy and isn't where my time is most valuable. So what do you think as you're listening to Beth Ann speak about the way her job was swallowed up by or automated by AI and you can hear her reticence to using it at all? I'm just wondering how you're seeing that part of the story. I mean I completely understand it and it makes me it makes me really sad honestly because I think I have had the ability to choose where to use AI and to be able to choose whether or not to use it and I've really enjoyed that freedom and I work with a lot of people who don't like it and choose not to use it. So the fact that someone has been been forced to and been forced out of their job I think is is awful and I don't think that should be the case at all. Beth Ann let me come back to you. Do you feel there is part of your job that you carried out that you feel AI won't be able to? Oh 100% a big part of my job because it was so custom-facing was supporting international students because we had a lot of the university that I worked at and English wasn't a first language for a lot of them. They would come up and they'd kind of point at something on their phone and we'd kind of have to figure out from what they were trying to point out like oh is it a password issue? Is it an email issue? Is it something more? We also had a lot of older students who weren't so good with technology like they had older phones they hadn't really used the fancy like university computers before so we'd have to really take the time and have some empathy with them and obviously empathy just isn't something that an AI can reproduce and I think a lot of people their first issue would be you know using that kiosk in the first place some people we had come up just never had used the keyboard before which sounds insane but no I don't understand that yeah and I do worry about them now it was a couple of years ago but I do worry how they're getting on using this kiosk instead of having a person's talk to and I wonder about that as well because you said you've tried to eliminate AI do you genuinely believe you can AI proof your life and career? I think it depends how willing you are to AI proof it I think if it's something you're really kind of staunch about and you're like this is this is gonna happen and I really need to do something about it then if you make major changes to your life then definitely if you only do jobs that AI could never do like physical jobs like I'm in hospitality now I don't see AI ever running plates for example but I think day to day if you're just sticking with your career and just you're kind of worried about it I think it might be a little bit harder because we don't know how AI is gonna change the next few years we don't know what kind of roles it's gonna be able to take yeah I mean there's this interesting concept as well they talk about AI bias and that it's only people who are impunching the data for example it's their opinions that will be what would I say I feel like saying spewed back out for you know what I mean that will come back out as answers and so it's important that there are people from all walks of life men women etc working within AI to try and make it non biased for example when it comes to various demographics do you feel any responsibility to be part of that I think it's definitely important that we consider who's training the AI obviously we've had instance with Sony as IIs online that the input has made it to have some kind of dodgy output I think it's important to for most people day to day to consider what they're putting online and how that could be input into AI personally it's not something I consider too much just because I try and keep as much stuff of mine away from AI as possible but I think it is something very much worth considering I mean hospitality is an interesting one to think about Beth and I'm already thinking about cure codes on tables you know what I mean when you order or when you pay etc I mean bring you back in here Ella there is there was no an S survey recently reporting men are more likely than women to believe AI can improve their job prospects 11% of men compared to 7% of women and increase their income 10% they believe compared to 4% of women also just looking at adopting it men were much more enthusiastic women more skeptical with the figures have you seen a difference gender wise have people approached it I mean absolutely yes I think women in my experience and the people that I talk to are significantly more skeptical and significantly more like easy to adopt AI into a lot of things and I'll be honest I think that's a great thing I think having people having more discussions about where AI isn't suitable and where not to use it and what we need to be cautious of is exactly the kind of thing that I think people need to be discussing and I do think a lot of the time I'm seeing women are leading those conversations and pushing them forward but I'm also seeing in my work we're having a lot of like peer-led community groups spring up of people who want to be discussing how they're working with AI or sharing training and knowledge with their colleagues and predominantly not always but majority of them are led by women which I think is is brilliant I think women are wanting to have critical discussions and wanting to share information and knowledge more which I genuinely think is only a good thing I just wish there were more AI critical being loud in their AI communities because when I think of AI bosses it's mainly men that come to mind yes absolutely it is looking ahead five or 10 years what do you think AI might mean for working women I mean I don't think I've predicted where we were at two or three years ago now like I think it's very hard to tell I can what I hope is that what I've seen AI do for me and my career will happen on a broader scale like people having the freedom to choose whether or not to use it and to use it to help them to support what they enjoy in their roles I'm not sure that's totally realistic and I think to get to that there's a lot of work that needs to be done in terms of regulation and you know AI leadership that's what I hope what I think might be slightly less optimistic interesting and back to you Bethan if a listener is working in admin or office support roles and feels nervous about AI is there any advice you might give them I found when my job was being threatened by AI I would I think being nervous was right for me obviously my job ended up being placed my advice would be maybe seek out unions unions were really helpful for me during my job process the reason that it took as long as it did was because unions really helped us with the fight against the AI but I think it's worth considering talking to management as well see if they could explain further how they want AI implemented see if it's something that maybe you could reconsider or even work into your job in a way that works better for you definitely worth just seeing your options around Bethan really interesting you say that for the reason we're talking about it is that the trade union conference is debating this subject this week in fact having it debate tomorrow afternoon so many jobs created by AI I should say as well when you look at the figures it's incredible particularly in the United States but I imagine at the UK as it debates is trying to decide exactly what path it might take Bethan and Ella Wicks really interesting thank you both so much for starting us off this Monday morning and Ella was talking there about that she didn't feel her language was correct in this employment setting she was in and that she was leaning on AI for that which was making me think about actually our next item which will get to girl speak in a moment what about therapy speak have you ever used that to explain how you feel or explain the behavior as you see it of someone else maybe did you ever say you felt triggered by a comment or that perhaps an ex-husband attachment issues or you were gasslet during a relationship but what effect does using therapy speak have in a day-to-day setting well over the past decade psychiatrist Dr. Suzanne Garfinkel-Crol noticed more and more girls describing themselves through the lens of therapy speak and psychiatric diagnosis often pulled from social media she has a new book I mentioned it at the top of the program girlhood translated and she explores had therapy speak is reshaping the identities of girls and what they are trying to say when they use it let me bring in Dr. Suzanne good to have you with us thank you so much for getting up early you're on the line from New York well tell me a little bit about what you saw in your practice great well thanks so much for having me Nula it's great to talk to you I have been in practice for about 15 years. And what I saw was that that in the past couple of years, the way that girls were speaking about themselves had really changed. It was almost like they were speaking a new language. So, you know, for example, when I started practicing, girls would come in and they would talk about the problems that they were having. They would say, you know, I'm not getting along with my mom, you know, school has gotten really challenging, feeling kind of bad about myself. And then, suddenly, it was, I have attachment issues, ADHD and depression. So, it was almost like, and, you know, of course, these are real diagnoses. People have mental health conditions, but was really, what was especially interesting to me was that those were the stories that seemed to matter, was the label itself. It was almost like the label had become the relevant story. I thought one example that you gave in the book, because you used kind of a composite character of patients to get across some of these issues. But that, for example, Becker, who would come to you saying, I have anxiety as opposed to I am anxious. Explain the difference. - Sure. So, I have anxiety. First of all, it's not a bad thing to say. It's an extremely common thing to say. I think we've all, you know, said I'm having anxiety. But the way that girls use this phrase, I exemplify in the case of Becker in the book. So Becker, Becker would say, I have anxiety or it's my anxiety about absolutely everything that didn't go well for her. You know, it was a bad weekend because of my anxiety. You know, school is tough for me because I have anxiety. And so, I was hearing this language, hearing this language. And as I got to know Becker more, we started looking at times when her, the anxiety she was noticing would become more noticeable or would flare. And it turned out, Becker was in a group of friends where that included her boyfriend and her best friend. And in, you know, several of the interactions they were having recently, her best friend was, you know, was kind of flirting a bit with her boyfriend. And Becker didn't even really realize that consciously, that this is what was happening, and that she had some feelings about it. And instead, she would just say, oh, they're giving me anxiety. And it's my anxiety, you know, which is something called internal attribution. And meaning, making the problem herself and her own mental health situation or condition, rather than even letting herself know that there was something a little bit wrong in her world that she didn't like. - And which is so fascinating. And I think with some of the examples you give, what I felt reading them was that there was a threat of these girls being unable to confront the issue and have conflict with somebody who is near and dear to you. - Exactly, that is present in a lot of the cases as it is, and, you know, I think for many, many girls who have a therapist and who don't have a therapist, because teenage girls are quite focused on their social lives as they should be. I mean, you know, we have research to show that even their brains are set up to be extraordinarily sensitive to what's going on in the social world. And they, you know, also, you know, this is true of the teenage brain in general, but that feelings are big and they hit very, very hard in adolescence. And the thinking apparatus is still very much under construction for a couple more decades. And these relationships are kind of everything, you know, they, teenage girls can't, they can't really get away from the, you know, when you're an adult, you have a lot more choice about who you're going to spend your time with or which friends you're going to really invest in. But, you know, teenagers have to go to school. They have to see each other every day. They're on social media. They, the same people keep popping up. And I think it's really, really hard because they don't, they don't know what to make of situations, what's normal or let alone how to, how to work it out. So their, their brains would much rather just say, "Oh, I have anxiety." And you do speak just to put this fully in context. You talk about poverty, racial discrimination, access to care being beyond the scope of this book. I would say reading that many of the girls that you speak about come from fairly privileged backgrounds, of course, to be able to access therapy often and pay for therapy, it may come from a certain social, economic group. But it was a term cyber-condria that I had not heard before. Do you want to tell me a little bit about how you see the interaction with social media playing out? Sure. Well, just, I mean, first to, to the point about the, the patients that I treat, you know, patients who have the privilege of working with a psychiatrist or a therapist, you know, it's, it's a real problem and it's a fact. But part of the reason why I wrote this book is because this is an issue that really does transcend, you know, all kinds of socioeconomic groups and demographics. I think largely because of social media. So it's many, many girls and families that I think are struggling to make sense of, of what this language means. To say, which relates to your second question about cyber-condria. So that's just a term that means self-diagnosing or believing that one has all kinds of mental health conditions because of what you see online and on social media. And that's an extremely common problem for young people. There is one chapter that talks about anxiety, girly people, girls, you know, giving themselves that diagnosis and talking about what feels like, what they do, what they don't do. And I suppose normalizing it, I would say, but I was wondering, you know, can this language, whether it's the trauma toxic or a diagnosis ever be helpful, even if, as a psychiatrist, you may not agree that they have that actual condition? Yes. Well, that's, that is an incredibly important point in this book because I think we've become really polarized as a society, at least in the U.S. and I get the sense in the U.K. as well, around this language, where, you know, half of the people are saying, you know, therapy speak is bad and it's harmful and, you know, everybody shouldn't speak in this way. And then, you know, other half of the people, I think, rightfully so, are saying it's so good that this, that these generations of younger people are more tolerant and accepting of mental vulnerabilities and interested. And if I had to pick which era I would live in, you know, I'd much rather be in this one, where, you know, perhaps everybody talks about their trauma a bit too much, but at least, you know, you're not getting shoved in a locker for, as I've said, for being different. I, you do say in your introduction, hysterical girls were the original psychiatric patients, serious, fatherly, older men were their doctors. And we kind of, so we're supposed we have that legacy, shall we say, when it comes to mental health and being a girl or a woman. Here's a message that came in, I think you'll be interested in. Girls have the ability to mask far more successfully than boys, and the medical profession sadly still takes girls and women much less seriously. The increased use of self-diagnosis and medical language may just be the only way some girls can find clarity and understanding for how they feel. Yes. Well, thank you for that comment, because one of the, one of the many reasons why therapy speak feels necessary and to young women is that first of all, it could be spot on. I mean, self-diagnosis is not always wrong. Therapy speak is not always bad. And oftentimes can be, can be really, really helpful. And I think part of the reason for that is even when it's not describing necessarily precisely the right condition, is girls have been called hysterical and silly and crazy through the ages. So if I can unpack those, those two different points a little bit, girls are, teenage girls are routinely mocked and trivialized in our society. And oftentimes I do think for young women the only way to feel heard is to reach for this elevated medical language, especially because sometimes maybe if you don't even, you know, don't necessarily warrant a full diagnosis, we all have psychiatric symptoms at times. So it can feel very much like, you know, you've got, you know, you're on the way to at least a psychiatric disorder. And that's, that's, those are terms that people take very seriously. So sometimes girls really do have to be sick to be heard. To have a medical diagnosis to be validated for, for how they're feeling. Fascinated by the term use the girl self-defense system. Let's talk about girl speak. I alluded to it at the top of this item. You said girls just want to have fun with language. You talk about the use of like that many teenage girls will use or questions at the end, you know what I mean. And you talk about a circumstantial thought process, which includes many details. Whereas what's lauded by society often is a linear, gold-directed speech pattern. Explain. Sure. So girls are the language pioneers and disruptors. You know, lots of evidence should. shows that among socio-linguistic communities that it's young women who are determining the slang and the sort of casual speak and the buzzwords of each generation. And it's also young women who look up the most health information online and to be cause of internal attribution are looking to find what's wrong with them, why are they the problem? So all of these things kind of combine to make young women the real, the heaviest users and pioneers of therapy speak. But part of what's complex here is that oftentimes therapy speak can be very useful and that young women are being smart when they're using this language because they recognize that this is what is necessary. So it's all part of the great female intelligence with language, including in terms using words that are often seen as trivial. And I use the word like as an example because if you think about it, I have a big footnote in the book about the word like because I think most girls and young women have been told you should use the word like less. It makes you sound silly. But when you're talking to your friends and you say I was like this or I was like that, it's a very nuanced word. It doesn't really mean I, if you say this was like my favorite meal. You don't mean this was my favorite meal of all time. You just mean it's something that I think that I feel or I was like this or he was like that. It doesn't necessarily mean that's what somebody said. It could also mean that's what somebody was thinking or feeling, but it's part of this incredibly elaborate social communication system that involves language that girls are developing as they enter the teenage years. - Fascinating circumstantial thought process. Here's another message. I'm a psychotherapist. Almost all of my in the UK. Almost all of my younger women have self-diagnosed and appears to be part of their identity. It can be unhelpful as the woman may feel she cannot change this or that about herself because of her label in inverted commas. She might be annoyed that I want to explore it. It also extends to those around her relationships described as toxic mothers as narcissistic and so on. It takes time to tease out whether these descriptions are accurate or more adopted speak. The challenge to help a younger woman work out who she is, as she matures is more difficult than it was for them, for them, any therapist, a teacher or a long suffering parent. I mean, that is very much echoed in your book and let me get to the parents in our last minute or so as well because you say parents often live in fear of their teenagers strong emotions. You also talk about there can be a culture in the home that looks down upon vulnerabilities, for example, but what would your advice be to parents of girls who are speaking and parapy speak, how to help them? - Yes, well, I think it can be incredibly challenging for parents just as it is for therapists hearing this language. And for parents, they often fall into one of two pitfalls. One is being overly panicked and taking the words so literally that they think, oh my God, I've got a daughter with all of these mental illnesses. I couldn't possibly be helpful and call the doctor immediately. I do think that there is a huge role for mental health professionals just to be clear, but that's one of the problems is being overly panicked because you're sort of missing the moment where your daughter is coming to you saying, whatever it is, I'm depressed or whatever. The other pitfall is not taking it seriously enough and I think parents are so frustrated with hearing these words and believing that every person in this generation thinks that they're very, very sick, that there's this eye role culturally. And that, of course, is extremely unhelpful because then that's just dismissing girls and women once again. So what I recommend is that parents introduce something I call small acts of translation. And what that means is you're not going to argue with the term nor are you going to take it on fully. You're just going to reach for plain language and so it's a two-step process. The first one is just a thinking step. Your daughter says, I'm depressed. So think of language that pops into your mind about depression. What do you associate with that word? Sad, be hopeless, lonely. And you're just thinking about her experience and you're already doing such a service for her just by thinking those thoughts because you're first of all, you're not making it worse and you're not overreacting or underreacting, but you're just being present and you're really trying to consider her experience. And then the second step is a talking one where in the right moment, you know, the right time, you may try offering a word back to her. Like, that sounds like it could be really lonely for you. Is that part of it? And see how that lands. And of course, it's not a one and done. It's going to be many conversations, some of which may include a mental health professional if necessary, but that is the human connection. And I think that that is the greatest thing that we're losing with all of this therapy speak is just relating person to person because whether she has a diagnosis or not, everybody wants to be understood as a human being. And I think that this step could really help us. - Girlhood translated, understanding girls in the age of therapy, speak and self-diagnosis. It's Dr. Cezanne Garfinkel-Krohl's book that is just a fascinating stuff as we've been hearing. Thanks so much for joining us this morning. - Thanks, Nila. - If you want to get in touch with us as many of you are, here's one interesting conversation. I think our language is so gendered and you called it out with the fact that the word hysteria comes from an old white man. My experience is that the younger generation and workforce of today are so much more informed and empowered to challenge the negative stereotypes. I would use women more than girls. We tend to say men rather than boys, unless they're under the age of age. That's from a man called Andrew. We are talking about girls in this primarily teenage girls, but I take your point. (dramatic music) - You know that moment when everything lines up, when life gives you the green light, and you just go, that's the 2026 Toyota Camry. No hesitation, no friction, just a car that's right there with you. Ready, responsive, in control the whole way through. Because when it's your moment, you shouldn't have to think twice. The 2026 Toyota Camry, go like you mean it. Test drive at your local Toyota dealer or visit Toyota.com today. Toyota, let's go places. See packages and options at Toyota.com for feature availability. - You know what quality feels like. You can see it in the way a fabric moves, recognize it in a flawless fit, and appreciate it in the details that make our styles unique. It's the standard cold water creek has honored for over 40 years, derived from a rich mountain west heritage, and designed for today in styles that are distinctively cold water creek. For a wardrobe you can count on season after season, visit coldwatercreak.com. Shop new arrivals and save 15% on purchases $75 or more with code iHeart. With a new Schwab teen investor account, teens can gain hands-on investing experience and build positive money habits. It's an account co-owned by you and your teen so you can monitor and engage with the account while your teen learns how to invest and manage money. Learn more at Schwab.com. (dramatic music) - Okay, of course, it's Celine Dion. Well, for many fans, they thought that moment might never come. But in Paris, this weekend, one of the biggest selling artists of all time, Celine Dion, made an emotional comeback. She sold 260 million albums worldwide. And this weekend, her fans saw her first full concert in six years. That was after a diagnosis of stiff person syndrome in 2022, which meant she had stopped performing. For those that didn't get in, Paris City Hall, get this. Organized a free outdoor karaoke for 10,000 people on Friday night as a giant sing-along to the hits. How wonderful is that? Two people who did get tickets for Celine's gig were superfan, Dr. Frankie Jackson Spence and Culture writer and fan Beatrice Hazelhurst. I'd like to know the difference between fan and superfan, but we can do it out here. Frankie, let me begin with you. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. You've waited years to see Celine Dion live. What did it mean to be there on this opening night? Oh my goodness, I grew up listening to Celine Dion and I've never seen her live before. So when she got poorly a few years ago, I thought, that's it, I've missed my chance. So just meant everything to be able to go, not only to see her, but on the opening night, it was just electric. Okay, how would you describe it? Give me a little bit of the frizz on the excitement. What did you see? Well, I was very lucky to be sitting in the superfan zone. I was really near the front. I can't believe the look I had getting those tickets. So what was incredible was actually being able to see Celine herself, not just watching on the screen. You know, sometimes when you go to a concert or too far back, you feel the atmosphere and you see the screens. But I could actually see the expression and the emotion on her face. So that was incredible. There was so much emotion in her performance, not just by her, but also by the crowd. You know, people were actually sobbing around me when she came on and she was sobbing on stage. So it just, it was incredible. And I think also there was some quite famous people sitting around me in the audience. As well, I believe Michelle Obama, Oprah, Shania Twain, were amongst us. So it was a great crowd. Oh my goodness, I mean, that's like, what would I say, a dream list for a guest list for women's hour. And let me bring you in here as well, Beatrice. You're there as a fan, but you're also working, right? Because you're a culture writer. What was your first impression of Celine walking on stage? How would you describe it? I mean, electric is the word. It was so magical. She was wearing this enormous Dior gown, and then she had like a Boucheron diamond, which I've heard since it's worth 5 million. So it was like, more than that, she just, she was just so incredibly radiant and looked strong. And I think that was really something that I wasn't prepared for. She has trained like an athlete for this show. She does ballet and pilates multiple times a week. She has just worked so hard to get to this point that I don't think she ever thought would come. And that is why, I mean, the crowd was so emotional. She was so emotional. The crowd started chanting to kind of bring her back because she started crying during our national spa. And it was just like, I've never seen that from a performer before. I've never seen like a performer crack. And that transparency was almost like a relief. It was like, okay, we can all experience this together. And like, have and share in this moment and this joy together. Like she's not stoic, she's human. And at that vulnerability, of course, connecting you probably even more. So did she sing all the old classics, Beatrice? She sung all the old classics. She went straight into, I believe, because of you, it was like, my heart will go on obviously end-themic and like so impassioned. Sorry, because you loved me, was where she started. And then she, oh my god, what does she do? She did like a transition from Donna Summers, I feel love. And I'm alive. And it was actually, I just so wasn't prepared for it. I wasn't quite prepared for like a cover of another artist. Certainly not when she did Sweet Dreams by the Eurythmics. And then it was like, just kind of bang her after bang her. Like she did Beauty and the Beast. That's the way it is. And then finished with, or by myself. And that was also probably only time during the show that we saw any kind of exertion from her. She just puffed before the final note. I'm sure Frankie will remember that moment where she just was gearing up for the final note and she just said, and it was like, okay, yeah. Like we understand like the work that's involved in this. And let me talk about that. Because both of you are so perfectly placed. Frankie, you are a doctor. We heard that Celine Dion had stiff person syndrome. She still has it, it's not curable as my understanding. But she has battled obviously to get to this point. What do you think that would take? And many people won't be familiar with stiff person syndrome at all. Can you explain a little of what it is? Stiff person syndrome is an extremely rare and neurological condition that causes rigidity and involuntary spasms in the muscles. And it's so rare. We actually don't know that much about it. We don't know exactly what causes it. It's thought to be autoimmune. So you're immune system attacking the muscles. And it's around a one in a million condition. Now what's so interesting for me watching her is that it is thought to be a progressive disease. So with time symptoms should get worse. But actually this is like the comeback of the century because I agree she was in such amazing physical condition. And I don't just mean vocally. That will have taken a lot of vocal therapy and commitment and training to get those laryngeal muscles and those vocal cords back into action like that. But also physically, her body looked so strong, the way she was dancing, the way she was holding herself, by the way, in like six inch heels as well. So it will have taken a lot of work. And I think that is what fans love so much about her is that she could have just hung up the towel and said, I've nailed my career. I've earned enough money. I've got this reputation. I'm going to call it a day now and focus on my health and not jeopardize my reputation. But she didn't do that. She's really must have spent a lot of years day in, day out to get to this point. This is a residency that she has in Paris that she's doing, I believe I think, at 16 dates. And then she is more coming back in May. As we were talking to Frankie there, her speciality is, of course, medicine. Do you, Beatrice, as a singer, tell me how you saw her performance? Yeah, I'm classically trained singing. And I think, honestly, I mean, it was just so transcendent. She did an Italian aria towards the end, which I think was actually the finale moment and then came back and did an encore. But the plus one who was with me, the last time she was in that arena was for Taylor Swift. And she just turned to me as a big swifty and said, Taylor could never do that. And I'm like, yeah, it is kind of like, it's a superior talent text, like technical expertise. Like, I've just never seen live. You don't see singers like that. That kind of breath control, that range. She's just like, one in a million, you know, not to use them for disease. But it's like, it really is. Like, you just don't see talent like that. And I can't think of a contemporary artist who could deliver what she did two hours of that kind of music. It's so incredibly difficult for a singer to even like tackle a song like The Prayer, which she made famous with André Bichelli and to do that with a full gospel choir and as a solo song, I mean, it was so impressive. - Sounds wonderful. Now, I described you as a fan, but I'm thinking of the moniker superfan on you now. (laughing) - Honestly, but the guilt I felt, there is kind of a reviewer and a critic when I was talking to kind of French friends and people in Paris who were like, I waited in line. I was in the lottery. And I was like, I didn't know there was a lottery. Like, I really, oh my God, I felt so undeserving to be there because of just her reach, her breadth and like in France specifically, I mean, she is an icon. She's a national treasure. So everyone wanted to be there. And I think that's why I was feeling a lot of imposter syndrome. - Well, I'm glad you had such a wonderful night and able to share it with us as well. Thank you, Beatrice Hazelhurst. Also thanks to Dr. Frankie Spence. Really interesting. I feel like I was there. Vicariously, at this point, who went to see Celine Dion on Saturday night. Thanks for all your messages that are coming in. We'll get to some of them on footballers and fertility in just a moment because last week Spain's football governing body announced they will offer egg freezing treatment to all national team players. So egg freezing involves storing a woman's unfertilized eggs with the aim. They would say of making it easier to have a baby later in life because it's very important of what age you freeze your eggs as well. The announcement comes after players, including former Spain captain, that's Alexia Poteas said that the world and European champions should not have to choose between their sport and motherhood. But the news has faced a backlash. Some suggesting it pressures players to prioritize their careers over their personal lives. To discuss this with me, we have sports therapists, a member of FIFA's a female athlete project, Michelle Lines. Also former Chelsea Goldkeeper, Carly Telford. Carly is now the commercial manager at Chelsea. They run a similar scheme to support female players who want to freeze their eggs. Great to have both of you with us this morning. Thanks for joining us. Carly, let me begin with you. This must be a dilemma that you've spoken about with your teammates. Peak competitive years often overlap with the reproductive years. They do, but I think I want to set the record straight. What we're doing is not just offering egg freeze in here at Chelsea. I think as a former player, there's a lot of stuff that goes into your playing career that means a lot of goes on the back burner. And that's even just looking after your health and your reproductive health. Are you getting tested? Are you kind of your hormones, endometriosis, menstrual cycle, all that kind of stuff and compasses us as athletes, but also, yes, egg freeze in an option of IVF and wanting to have children whilst just still playing and at the end of your career gives us multiple options. So I think for me, when I sat on this journey about 18 months ago to look for a partner, it wasn't about freezing eggs. It was about allowing the players and the athletes to take charge of their bodies and find out more about themselves and then have options on the table. So the VIK kind of that is there for the players' via fertility plus is for them to kind of have an option, a menu of options that they can use from testing their own fertility to then freezing their eggs if they wish to, to their hormonal kind of, how they react during their phases, their menstrual cycle. And yeah, I think it's for us to allow the players to take control of that rather than having to wait or have to go and seek help from elsewhere. Yes, and we'll get to some of the pushback on that as well. But about that particular point, it must be something that is spoken about, I would imagine, probably more open now than it would have been used ago about the fact that if you want to have a child, it can be difficult as an elite athlete. Yeah, and it can, of course, that there's a lot of choices in particularly my era when we were making choices between having full-time jobs and playing football, that alone went to have children or not, and whether that was possible and taking career breaks and whether clubs were going to reassign you if you announced you did get pregnant, and what that looked like after you returned, because again, the physical health, probably Michelle will talk more here at Chelsea, we have a pelvic floor therapist, we have a menstrual cycle doctor, we have things that help athletes prepare. them themselves for performing, but also if they do go on to have children. We've had Mali Lua Poles, the Chair and Recivić two players who played four Chelsea go on to have children and then return and play for us. So it's about encompassing the play and allow the players to feel comfortable to make their own choices and that's very individual to every athlete and every player. But I think having that choice is super important and it makes them feel comfortable. It allows them to come to the club and have options on the table to have children while they play for us or after or during. And I think that's super important for a player's happiness. So let me go though to sum off the objections. The first thing I suppose I should lay out as well that the HFEA, this is the human virtualization and embryology authority they talk about because we are talking about egg freezing today specifically says that frozen embryo transfers they rose the birth rates from that rose from 80% in 2013 up to 33% in 2023. But you know they're very much stressed egg freezing does not guarantee a future baby there's so many variables and relatively few women who freeze their eggs for non medical reasons at return to use them. I'm wondering Michelle if a sportswoman is considering egg freezing what do you think she should know? Well I think you know first of all it's great to see that sporting bodies are actually acknowledging that female athletes have reproductive lives because I think as one of your earlier speakers was talking about you know from a mental health perspective a very linear gold directed path and that certainly would apply to male athletes. But for you know the I think I should put it the complexity of female circumstantial thought processes you know we've got very good you've been listening to the whole program. I took notes I took notes and I think it's really important that we do look at anything that gives women reproductive autonomy and choices I think is a good thing. Boss I think it's important as well that we don't end up in a situation where female athletes feel that they have to go down a path of egg freezing for the sake of their career because I think you know for a long time there was a bit of a motherhood penalty in sports but now you know I mean even looking at the last Olympic cycle we saw the rise of the mother athlete and lots of athletes hitting PB's after having babies so I think it's really just important as as Carly was saying that we support female athletes throughout you know menstrual health pregnancy and postpartum and certainly within the FIFA female athlete project we're looking at creating a body of research first of all so that we have an evidence based practice and then we can filter that down from high level high performance athletes all the way down to grassroots so we're supporting girls and women at every stage of their reproductive lives but it's it's about choices and if I can just say as well as you point it out egg freezing can be really empowering but we don't want athletes have a full sense of security about it either as well and that's what I want to come back to I want to turn to this is Anna Peletiero Camparole Breon she's a Spanish Olympic triple jumper but of course it's something that sports women various disciplines come up against she criticized the move I'm going to read quite a bit of what she said the problem isn't freezing eggs she said the problem is why does the institution these women work for have an interest in financing them to delay their motherhood and here's there's a problem for me that it changes absolutely everything is this measure intended to make it easier for women to be mothers or is it intended to make it easier for them not to be mothers while they're playing she says look what can happen here instead of adapting the sports structure so that motherhood fits within it we adapt women's reproductive timing so they continue to fit the structure and there's still something else that worries me more she says today freezing eggs is an option but when that option is offered to you by the institution your professional career depends on at what point can the option start to become an expectation let's imagine if you could freeze your eggs why did you decide to get pregnant right now there we have a huge problem Michelle yeah I mean I think she makes a lot of valid points there look egg freezing is shiny it's bright it's scientific it's a magical thinking going into that as well I would actually be super excited if we saw a postpartum support system being put in place like what are we doing to support breastfeeding with athletes their you know childcare their transport facilities and what are we doing about making sure that every every athlete going through this perinatal transition has access to pelvic health physios like myself you know what are we doing to look at that broader picture and and really supporting motherhood as well as giving women choices so it's all about making informed choices and giving women's the support female athletes the support that they need no matter what choice they make and not pigeonholing them and forcing them down a path that they may not want to go and of course you know various clubs can have different programs I know the Spanish policy includes among other things supporting female players to travel with their children during major tournaments I want to turn to the former lioness Tony Dugin Carly she became pregnant in 2022 while playing for Everton in England she said I don't think women's football is ready for women to be pregnant Carly do you understand why she would say that yeah of course like Tony's lived and breathed there very much like myself she's a couple of years younger and I think different clubs that is the fact it's not led by the FA at the minute the PFA have just announced something in the summer to help players out but every club is different every every budget is different I think that comes down to everyone's kind of how they think about it in their clubs we've been led by Emma Hayes and over six years who went through something herself and wanted her players to feel like they were cared for in various ways she left the club and left people like me and charge and others around us CEO directors to be like how can we do things differently Chelsea how can we lead in these areas so that other clubs follows other federation's follow so I think for me it was very powerful that we've done this I think leading on to what you're sitting mission you Michelle are saying on Thursday we'll announce a player care policy that will come out that will surround the post-partum around what that looks like for a player when they're pregnant how they exit that and what it looks like for the return to play so again we're very impatient about like yes we're going to do something but we're also doing more than that and that leads into the after the after motherhood as well so look we let me let me turn to you actually on that Carly I'm just thinking staying with the egg freezing for a moment and really interesting that those other initiatives are being launched but how much take up have you heard from players when it comes to egg freezing itself that's not my in that nicest possible it's not my business I think that the business of the players and what they do and what they do with that and the fact that it's not just about egg freezing that that is one of the options well this is the I suppose the aspect that we're talking about today because it's so much you know whether we're talking about AOC the politician in the United States or others it's very much on the headlines and as I keep on reiterating it is not obviously a guarantee and there's so many variables and the numbers are still low for example when it comes to a successful live birth after egg freezing but I didn't want specific players details of course but I was just you know are people doing it yeah not not as again as I'm aware that one of the decisions that we made is when we were doing this is that it would be play confidentiality and stability in the doctor the player themselves and whoever they want to tell within the team player environment but look that is there to support them whole heartedly that is there if they want to go down that route but also like if they just want to more know about want to know more about their bodies and that is the most important thing every player is different all their bodies are different how they interact and how they go through this cycle of life and what they want that to look like for themselves whilst their playing is super important to us as a club so we want to know that they have that support and that is optional if they access it if they don't touch it at all that is also that their choice but if people want to know more and go down that route then it is exactly the fit there for that reason we hope that other clubs do that as well so come and come in I'm 73 now but I would have left at the chance to freeze my eggs it would stop the musical chairs approach where all girls grab the man even if they don't love them leading to much unhappiness later on for both parents and for children just one message that's coming in here let me see as you discussed there is only one gender who can give birth to future geniuses and footballers yet women are being asked to dedicate their most productive years to work and rather than reproducing somebody kind of chiming in on how they see this particular story playing out I suppose the thing is it has got everybody talking and thinking about it and looking at some of the realities of reproductive years and also fertility and egg freezing I want to thank both of my guests really interesting to hear from both of them this morning who are thinking about this former Chelsea Goldkeeper Carly Telford commercial manager at Chelsea and also Michelle Lines from the FIFA's female athlete project do join me tomorrow we'll be talking about absent fathers again fascinating series that we've had on Women's Hour over the past couple of weeks I do hope you'll join me then thanks so much for all your contributions and I'll talk to you tomorrow that's all for today's Women's Hour join us again next time 25 years on from the deadliest terror attack in history why are thousands of grieving families still fighting for answers in early 2000 two young Saudis arrived in San Diego they'd never been to America spoke almost no English and had no idea how to open a bank account or rent a flat within weeks they'd done all of it 20 months later they hijacked a plane and crashed it into the pentagon Jane McMullen investigates the hidden story of a man who helped two of the hijackers and reveals a story that the US and Saudi governments have fought to keep secret from Radio 4 this is In Treek, a 9/11 story, listen first on BBC Sounds. Part of my eye-blue whistle was I didn't want to lay in bed in 20 years having seen another million people die. I know that I could've done something when I had a chance. - This week on The Interface, we're talking to Frances Haligan. - The Facebook whistleblower who leaked the documents that changed how the world saw social media. - And now she is the subject of Aaron Sorkin's latest movie, The Social Reckoning. - So join me, Thomas Dermain. - And me, Jess Maddox, We're The Interface. - Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. (dramatic music)