Open Discussion – Bikes, Boris, Brexit

Hello and welcome to open discussion with the three J's on Women's Radio station. And that's me, Julia, Judith and Joy. And today we are going to be talking about bikes. Not motorbikes, not push bikes, but those bikes that you do something to. You unlock them on the street and they're just lying around. The Chinese ones, little yellow ones. Is it the Chinese ones or the white ones? There's yellow and orange ones. Not even those. Not the Santander ones, because they're actually nice. I like those. But it's the other lot that lie around. Yeah, they don't have a. They don't have any parking bays, do they? I think that was a design fault, actually. I think they should because then people wouldn't throw them in the street. Well, I've seen a couple and wondered why they were there and I didn't know whether someone had lost it, whether someone had stolen it off of somebody and then just dumped it afterwards. It left me a bit confused because I don't have anything to do with bicycles. Well, any bike enthusiast is horrified when they see a bike lying on the ground. It's just abandoned. Yeah, it's horrible. I started to notice that nearly every homeless person in London now has a bike, particularly around the Elephant and Castle. They're all riding them round and it is with these, what they call dockless bikes, as opposed to the Santa ones, which have docks where they're left. Where they're just left anywhere. And there seems to be a lot of anarchy going on in this country with regards to the bikes that. Where people are actually breaking the locks off and stealing them and taking them home. Well, I think it's just the top of the. It's just a symptom of our society that we have here. We have rubbish thrown everywhere. It's quite. When you come, when you go abroad and then you come back into London, you think, oh, my God, it's untidy, disgusting pavements. And when you go to, like, places like Rome, you know, Italy and parts of France, everything seems like, well, you've got nice flowers and flower pots. There's no rubbish. Maybe I have a romantic view of other countries, but I think as a nation we are quite slovenly. The fast food thing as well makes a lot of mess, especially in London streets. Across the road to me, where I live, there was a church having a huge harvest festival event at the weekend and about three times I went out for different reasons and then I'd see serviettes and polystyrene bowls and some of them had sort of remains of chicken wings in them and people had just thrown them on the floor. And I just thought, you know, why you've come here? You've come to church, you've come to celebrate your harvest festival. Why are you just littering the street that these people live in with all of your detritus? It's not very spiritual, is it, littering? But people seem to think that it's just okay to throw things on the floor. You know what really annoys me is chicken bones left on buses. And it's particularly school children get a box of chicken wings on the way home and they eat them and they just leave the bones. They throw them all on the bus and they're disgusting. Smells. Yeah, don't smell very nice. But back to bikes. The bikes are the. They are becoming litter now. Are they going to withdraw them? They have in Manchester and apparently they are thinking about it from the whole of the UK and that we're the only country in the world where this has happened. Apparently. Yes, it's worked in other countries. In other countries it's fine. And they are respectful of these bikes, but we aren't. And some people say it's because of inequality, that if these bikes are around and people are excluded because they don't have a mobile phone and they don't have a credit card and they can't use them, and as I said, I've seen quite a lot of homeless people with them. And, you know, is that a kind of spirit of anarchy, of not being excluded from society and doing that, or is it just pure theft and vandalism? Is it harder to steal the bicycles out of the Santander docks, then? Yes, because they're actually left in the docks, whereas these other ones, they're left around. I've even seen people carrying them away. But how do they open them? There must be something on it that they have to remove in order to be able to ride it without paying for it. Yeah, apparently they found a way to break them off so they carry them away. So is it like a padlock on it or something? It's like a reader. It's like a sort of digital device that unlocks and they can un. I mean, I don't think we should give excuses to people. I mean, whether you're homeless or not, whether you don't have any money, you don't go around stealing bikes, leaving them scattered on the pavement so people trip over them that, you know, you could have, you know, somebody who's blind, who can't see you know, I think it's. Maybe I'm sounding, you know, a bit reactionary, but I don't think that's an excuse. I don't know. I've seen some around and they don't look in good shape at all, the bikes. They don't look like they're rideable. So that was the other thing. There was a guy, a South Korean guy, who's going around the world on his scooter and everywhere he's been, he's had a really good experience. He came to England and he went inside for something and he came out and his scooter had been stolen. And it was found later on that it had been stolen, abandoned and actually burned. And it was incredible that the shop that he went into, because he evidently couldn't speak very good English, and he went back to the bike shop that he'd been into and told them what had happened and this guy put a shout out for him and people online raved money to sort of buy another scooter for him. And that's the article saying, what is it about this country? Why does this happen here when it didn't happen anywhere else? But the fact that he was sort of rescued by this country as well. I mean, people helped him. Yeah, there's always good people, but, you know, in all these other countries, he's done, you know, I don't know, something like 40,000 miles on this scooter and he comes to England, leaves it parked outside for five. I think the same thing happened to her person on a bicycle. I think he did a similar tour around the world on this bike. Oh, this was a scooter and it was a state of the art. Obviously it was very well made, nothing happened to it. And then he left it somewhere in Britain and it was stolen. I think they found it, but I think it needed repairing and things. Yeah. So we do have this kind of reputation for vandalism and bad behavior, but we're also one for being kind and generous and helping people as well. Well, it's two extremes, isn't it, of the English character? Because when you think things like the football hooliganism, which isn't as bad now, but if you go back to like the 70s, 80s, it was really. Well, Millwall was very young, local people were in terror. And Chelsea, all the shops and pubs used to close up, didn't they? Yeah, yeah, it was. You just didn't want to go anywhere near where there was a football match on. But what makes, you know, one stream of people behave in one way and another stream of people behave in another way. Because I don't think the people that steal bikes and set light to them are the same people that will then sort of try and raise funds for somebody. They're different people. It's family influences. I don't know. I think I used lack of empathy. But that's, that's. That's to do with your family upbringing, isn't it? If you have a family or wherever you come from, there's something that you're not taught early enough. Maybe you have a very bad. Dysfunctional. Yeah, dysfunctional family that don't. I think that's part. I think upbringing is a big part of it, but I think a person can also, who can empathize with others is not going to do that. And I think even in like bad families, you get some sort of good people. And we've been taught how to empathise. Children are not naturally empathetic, are they? Some people never do attain empathy. It's not within their biological making to be able to do it. Yeah, there are people with those personality disorders, whatever you call it, who aren't able to do that. But I'm not really talking about them. That's a slightly different. But they must be. Some of the people that are going around doing these kind of things. It's a kind of like selfishness thing of. They must have. We are in a bit of a kind of must have society or a sense of entitlement to everything. It's just rather a shame, though, when you've got the opportunity to have a bike, borrow it for, you know, a day, half a day, half an hour even. I don't know how much it costs though. Is it expensive? Quite cheap. A lot of school kids use them as well, so they must. Oh, they can't be expensive. Yeah. Which is quite nice when you see a group of school kits that are on them using them properly. Yes. So you have seen them used properly? Oh, yeah. I know a lot of people are using them properly, but. Yeah, but I've definitely seen a lot of abuse and bikes dumped. I mean, I've seen several people live near me have got them hidden in their front guard. So they. Do you think our psyche's been changed since, you know, it was the author self regime brought on by the she who may not be named in 1980s. I think, I hate to say it, the B word, Brexit. I think that's unleashed something. I think it has unleashed. It's like Trump as well. They seemed, it seems to have said to people, yeah, you can behave like this because we're. Our voice is heard and we're going to do what we want. I don't know, because I think it has ex. People like that on. I think since you know her, she. That cannot be named from the 80s. I think she started a cultural change in society. She changes the psychology. Yeah. With selfishness and getting stuff and money and things. And I think that's perpetuated it until we get someone like Trump who is a person who is supposed to be like, you know, normally the most respected person in the world. The president is behaving like a vandal. And so people react and say, oh, if he's behaving like that, then it's okay to behave badly. And I think it has changed society. Well, I hope you're wrong. I think there are a few people that are still honorable, kind. Yeah, but I mean, of course there are, but it's. But politicians have always been like that. It's just that the sort of. The pernicious, the vicious people have sort of got a voice and they're being, you know, they're able to kind of express it and say it out, aren't they? Yeah, they are, in a way that had been controlled, really, because, you know, there's always been nasty people and wanting to do nasty. There's dissent, isn't there? There's dissent in the land and it's interesting times. Anyway, we're gonna have. We're gonna take a break. You can make your coffee, but please, mine's black, no sugar. Thank you from all the presenters and the team behind Women's Radio Station. Thank you for listening. You've been the most amazing audience with your sparkling enthusiasm and support. So from our hearts, we would like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year full of joy and surprises. I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? 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We're currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website every little will radio station. Hello, welcome back to open discussion with the 3Js. We were talking about Trump, but he's boring. So we're going to move on to Boris, aren't we? Do we feel that Boris is like the English equivalent of Trump? Well, his behavior is a sort of. He's a bit of a loose cannon, isn't he? That's Trump sometimes, isn't it? And with women, he's like divorcing yet another wife to be with a young. It seems very comfortable before then. Oh, yes, I didn't know that. Yes, he has got quite a reputation with the ladies. But actually, you know, I like Boris's father. I think Stanley. I quite like Stanley. Yeah, he's. He's fun. Whereas Boris is just a big head. Well, I think all the family sort of think, oh, God, it's him again, you know. Although his father probably want to disown him, his father has publicly spoken out for him several times. I mean, when he was elected as mayor, saying, oh, he'll be a fine mayor. Oh, that's so, yes, actually, Boris actually was quite a good mayor, but I think. I don't think he was. I mean, I didn't vote for him. I voted for what's his. Khan, which. But I think it's a bit of a poisoned chalice, Mayor of London. Anyway, it's a very difficult thing to do. But I don't like the way he did the Brexit. He turned and changed his mind about that. He's. And I don't like the way he. I mean, I don't like Teresa, actually, but he's not. He's just out for himself. And that's what I don't like about him. He's conniving, isn't he? Yeah, he's. Yeah. Because with the Brexit, he didn't decide. He sat on the fence and then decided when he thought the route that would get him to BPM was to go for it. It wouldn't at all surprise me if in about two years time he's Prime Minister. It really wouldn't. I hope I'm wrong. I hope you're wrong. He is conniving and he's manipulative and I think he could. But people are aware of what he's doing. But he's still got a lot of people on his side, hasn't he? But people. He's very popular. He's popular. It's like Trump. Like the ordinary man on the street seems to think that Boris is going to do something for him. Whereas in London, when he was mayor, he helped rich people buy property and things. He didn't help poor people. Whereas Sadiq Khan has done things for the ordinary people. But he does seem to have this kind of popularism. And it also seems. If you're a womanizer. Oh. And a bit of a lad. Oh, yeah. You know, that seems to be a good thing in a politician. Why? You know, people are admiring, again, what is like. Like bad behavior. But a woman would get called. I'm trying to get the word in. Eduard. Yes. Yeah, yes, exactly. But he's called Boris. He's called Boris. Nobody calls him Boris Johnson. They call him Boris, which is very, very interesting. Yeah. And they used to call him Bonking Boris as well at one time, but they didn't play about him, didn't they? And they called Boris bikes after him. But actually it was Ken Livingstone that actually started the bikes. And Boris took. Yeah, and he took credit for it. And it wasn't anything to do with him. Even though he's a cyclist, I have seen him cycling around. He does look a comic figure. Actually, yeah. No, he's very into cycling and I think he has done a lot for cycling in London, although I don't think a lot of people would agree on the routes he's chosen for cycling. Some of the language that he's come up with, the description of Theresa Mays having put a bomb jacket on the uk, it's kind of outrageous, inflammatory language, isn't it? It is. He seems to everyone sort of comes shock and horror. And then it's a bit like those tapes where Trump was heard saying, oh, yes, you know, I'm not going to repeat the words. But, you know, what he thought was locker room stuff and it was perfectly okay. And, you know, Boris sort of says all these terrible things and then it kind of. It sort of goes away. He speaks before he thinks. Yeah, but it's like, you know, they sort of say, oh, don't worry about it. You know, three days later, it's the newspaper going to be taking home your chips, you know, and they were still using printed newsprint. It's like they expect people to forget. Well, and also, when he was Foreign Secretary, he didn't help the cause, he didn't do anything. That lady who's stuck in. Well, he made it worse. Yeah, he's got no diplomatic skills whatsoever. Yeah, no, he doesn't. And also there was that other kind of Islamophobic comment he was making about women in burqas looking like letter boxes. And then again, he's done the suicide jacket thing. So he does seem to be Islamophobic in his time. And that's real kind of dangerous popularist stuff, isn't it? Whipping up person against the enemy. You know, it's like kind of Nazi Germany to me. And again, giving people permission almost to sort of attack themselves. Yeah, to attack or hate people or ridicule people, you know, and I, you know, if he does talk without thinking, then I think that's really bad for somebody who has ambitions to be our Prime Minister. But I think probably it's quite calculated. Oh, I do, because I've overheard people on the street say things like, oh, yeah, well, Boris is the only politician who talks any sense. He's the only one you can trust in this country. So he is actually very successful as a politician, mind you. Who is it? Oh, it's Corbyn, isn't it? They're trying to change the boundaries, aren't they, at the moment. And in it, Corbyn could lose his seat because it won't exist anymore. Is it North Islington when They're changing because they want to reduce the number of MPs in the House. They want to get rid of 50 MPs, and in the process, Corbyn's constituency is going to go and there was somebody else's that's going to be. Oh, it was Boris. It was Boris that he. You know, his 5,000 majority would be severely challenged if the boundary lines were changed. But the parties will find them both safe constituencies to move them. They won't let their leaders go. But it just. I don't know, because they said if it goes through, this bill that they're putting through to change the boundary lines, what they're trying to push through, if it was in existence when they had the last election, Theresa May would have been in with a huge majority. So they're fiddling the boundaries, you know, to make it more likely that they'll get the majority. And it's just appalling, isn't it? I mean, have you heard anything about this? Is it. Because it seems to have come out of nothing else. I'll tell you why I think it's happened is because there is going to be another general election very soon, very soon, sooner than people realise. And I think that's why they're. This is a very old thing and it's called gerrymandering and it's been going on for hundreds of years and politicians still get away with. With. Yeah, but they are going to do for themselves and their party. I mean, I have to say that when I heard Vince Cable speak this week, he said, like, actually a politician that was actually being sensible and responsible and, like, caring for everyone and, like, saying he's going to stay until the Brexit thing's over. He's not going to kind of, like, run away like David Cameron did. And, like, you know, I think Boris has done it in a way. Now he's gone and left the sinking ship and then he can come back and say, oh, all that Brexit, it wasn't my responsibility. I think, Prime Minister. But Vince Cave would say he's sitting around and then he's going to find a suitable person to replace him. But I think that's the kind of, you know, the way I want politicians to be. I want to feel like I'm in safe hands. I mean, I think the. The thing about the Brexit thing is it's not. It's just been so mismanaged. Whether you agree with it or not, we're going and we need to have people to negotiate a good deal. But they're all running away. They're all like. They're all not taking responsibility. Nobody's discussing it properly. There's been no proper. It's all attacks from either side. It's appalling. If. Smoke and mirrors. Yeah. If a person who was on benefit and went to the job centre and took such a chaotic approach to getting a job or applying for a job, they would have their benefits stopped. It is so. I just think it is so appalling that they haven't managed to do anything and they're leading people into what could be a terrible mess and definitely in being. And it's not just for this country that it'll be a mess, it's for a lot of the European countries are going to be in a. Well, the British people who live abroad. Well, no, it's not, but it's other countries that, you know, the businesses, the companies that have trading links with us. It's not just our companies that will suffer if they don't do a decent deal. It's going to be all of those as well. Yeah. And I think I was very against it and I think I would have been accepting the vote by now if they had a plan, whereas they haven't. And I think, why don't. No. What's going to happen to my finances? I think I'm going to be poorer as a result of it. I think so. Oh, dear, can we cheer up? Is there something we can bring, some hope, a spark of optimism in our last few minutes? I mean, it's quite good to talk about it because I almost feel that people aren't talking about it, they're avoiding talking, but I think everyone's just hardly fed up with it, which is why they just can't. They're fed up all they want, all they're worried. I think Channel 4 news have been really good. They've got this thing every night, though, they have one minute to bring you up to date with Brexit because it's kind of saying, yeah, we know you're fed up with hearing it sort of wall to wall Brexit. So this is it, you know, we'll give it you in a Reader's Digest form in a minute. Well, it's so annoying to say one day, oh, well, we've got a solution, don't worry, we're going to work it all out the next day. Oh, no, no, that'. Nobody's accepting that. And that's really annoying. Like children in the country. Well, I think it's such a humongous thing and that the people that are doing all of the work, not just in this country but in the other countries, it's never happened before. So they're kind of having to reinvent this wheel and it's such a blooming great big wheel and it's so interconnected with all the other wheels that I think they don't know, which is why we should never have done it in the past. They should not have had a referendum without working all this lot out in advance and giving people the information. They didn't. People were not clearly informed and people didn't know what they were voting for. They thought they were voting to get a blue passport. No. Well, my dears, we're going to take a short break. I don't think we're going to come back to Brexit or Trump or. No, we'll have something a bit more. We'll think of something else. Spirited. Watch this space. Women's Radio Station is looking forward to a great 2019 with more shows coming your way. All the presenters and the team behind each program would like to say a big thank you for listening. We are the voice of women worldwide and we cannot be without you. 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To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help. And welcome back to open discussion with the three Js. That's me, Julia Collier, Judith Walker and Joy. And we were talking about anger in the workplace. But actually I don't feel. I don't get that angry generally. I think I get irritable. Is that a form of anger? I think it could be the suppressed anger that Joy was talking about before the break. I kind of like to just admit that I get really angry now with what people have done to me in the workplace, but I need to let off that anger at home now. Now my husband have to shout at home or kick the cat with my brains. Oh, no, the cats. No, she's really old. I don't kick her anymore. No, I didn't. I don't kick cats. People, please don't start trolling me on the Internet. Yeah, but I do. Or I let off steam to friends, which I think I have to join Julia sometimes as well about my work situation. But yeah, I've learned not to do it in the workplace. But I think it really needs to be addressed and acknowledged that it happens because it has to go out somewhere. Which I think was what Joy was saying. Weren't you that suppressed anger leads to emotional breakdown. But you were saying about also the insecurity that people feel in the workplace now. And I mean, we're almost reverting back to kind of. Is it pre Victorian times when there were no unions and people were all scrabbling for their work? They didn't know whether they had work from one day to the next and the only thing they had to fall back on was the church. Usually it's like the dockers, they used to have to line up by the docks every morning and some kind of overseer would come and pick out who was allowed to work that day. If they didn't work, they didn't need. I'm sure that still happens. I'm sure. I've seen people on street corners, waiting with the zero hours contracting. That is exactly what's happening. It's just called something different and happens in a slightly different way, but it's the same situation. I think we are getting back to. I mean, I think it's a subject that we've talked about previously that it goes back to the Thatcher era when she set out to dismantle the power of the trade unions because it was perceived that they were too powerful in this country and too many strikes. And maybe there were trade union leaders that behaved irresponsibly and got people out on strike because of power. There was some abuse of power, but that was very minimal compared to the protection that unions were giving workers for their, their kind of the health and safety, their pay and conditions. That was very important. But I think that's been. She started to undermine it with her big defeat of the miners. But do you belong to a union? I mean, is there a union for. I mean, I could join. I mean I belong to Equity, you know, that's the actors union. But I could join Unite or Unison as I think they look after office workers, you know, administrators, NHS administrators. I think I did join a union once and then I saw what the chief executive was being paid, which I thought was absolutely, you know, ridiculous, you know, with loads of naughts after the end of the. I thought, well, I'm not going to contribute to that. I think that that's how unions are undermined in some ways. I mean, I'm not really being in a position where I've been in a unionized employment for quite some time. If I was somewhere like working in nhs, I think I would join a union. And I think one of the main reasons people don't is because they see it's like paying towards a pension contribution. They see the money going out of their paper towards something and people don't like money being taken out. They see the national insurance and the tax and they don't want other deductions. But it can be a very useful thing. I mean, I know just recently there's a friend of mine who actually was a union member and actually resigned from their job due to workplace stress. And then like about two days later, a voluntary redundancy scheme was put in place and this person was told, no, you can't have the money, no, you resigned, it's too late. But the person went to their union and the union got them the money. And that is a lot of money through paying that contribution. And I think it's very easy with the chief Executive. And I know the same thing can happen with charities. Sometimes it can be looked at or used as an excuse for undermining organisations by saying, look at how much the chief executives get. But when you compare the amount they're getting, often to people in industry or people in banks, it's not huge compared to that. And if you want someone to run, run a place and be kind of very responsible and do the job at a high level, you do need someone who's paid a certain amount. It was hundreds of thousands, though. I didn't think anybody was worth that. I don't think anybody's worth, you know, all the people at the top that are creaming off these huge, huge salaries and bonuses. It's just. It just feels like corruption to me, to be honest. Well, they always say that that's what the marketplace dictates. That's what the. You know, they always have this line where, you know, if they weren't to get it from there, they'd go somewhere else and they would get it from somewhere else. I think there is a lot of, yeah. Overpaid people, particularly in banks, in the private sector, in the city, there are people who are paid obscene amounts. But I think sometimes those same sort of people will point the finger at, you know, people like charities or trade unions and kind of undermine those. All organizations for paying something that's like fat cats at the top are all justifying or trying to justify and they're pointing their fingers at all the other people. But basically, I think all the people at the top these days are just paid obscene amounts of money. When you look at what's happening at the bottom. Yeah. And I think also they're not paying enough tax. Exactly. They should be paying more tax. Exactly. They've got good wages of getting out of paying tax. Cause they've got accountants and things. And there is. There has been a real kind of division taking place in society where it's like the rich are grabbing more and more for themselves. And I think that personally, that that's what austerity was about, that David Cameron brought in, like penny pinching from the poor, taking away their benefits, you know, and the councils are losing funds, there's more and more cutbacks in local. Ordinary people are seriously losing quality of life. Just that the rich people can pay less tax and go and buy more Rolex watches or Porsche cars or more houses. And, you know, I think that's where the real greed is and that's where it needs to be. That's where I get finger pointed. Yeah. When I start talking, I can feel myself just getting hotter, just, you know, sort of thinking about this topic of conversation, because it just annoys me that some people in the world today are so greedy and there are people at the bottom with absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing. I know, it's just what you see the number of people who are homeless on the streets of London and it's other cities now. It's not just London. I was in Bournemouth last week and the homelessness and the begging there was appalling. And that is a place where rich people live. The most expensive place in. In the world to live. Sandbanks is just down the road. All the rich people have their houses and, you know, and these people just don't have the basic rights. And in London, there's a lot of property that's vacant because rich people. Yeah. Places as an investment, and they're leaving them empty. And, yeah, you're right, that is something to get really angry about because it's just like these rich people could just give up some of their wealth so that everybody would have the basics. Most people just want. Well, they won't give it up. You have to have a strong enough government line. You have to make sure that people generally pay more tax and they can't avoid paying that tax. I mean, I don't quite understand how it works, but it seems, and I've read several articles now and heard people talk about it, that the quantitative easing did nothing but give the people at the top more money to spend. They are the ones that really benefited from, you know, sort of downvaluing our currency. And I, you know, I don't. It seemed to give them more stuff to invest with. I don't know if. Yeah, no. Either of you understand that, but I don't know why it works, but it does seem as though, you know, austerity and quantitative easing, which was the main thing you. To combat this austerity, all it did was benefited the people at the top and made them even richer. Yeah. Which is what the Tory government did. That's what David Cameron did with a kind of, you know, a friendly smile on his face. So people sort of trusted. But that's exactly what he was doing. I don't think all the austerity was at all necessary in the quantity of easing. It was a way to just. And also, it stopped investment, you know, it stopped people progressing their businesses because they, you know, they're always being penalized at the lower end. You know, business rates, loads of businesses going out of. Yeah, yeah. Small businesses have not done well under it at all. So you know all this. I mean, I just think they just got to have more. Pay more tax generally. Yeah. I don't like the idea that rich, that rich people like in America, there's low tax because it's considered that rich people donate money to charity. I don't want to live in a country that's full of rich people that decide when they going to give money to the health service or charities. Well, it's a philanthropic society in America, much more than here. I mean, we've got lots of rich people here that never give any money. I was reading a book about it. Americans are very generous. The rich Americans. Yeah. But that's because they get tax concessions through being generous, more so than in this country. And maybe that's a way of getting their money out of them. But I just want them to be forced to give their money in tax so that we know that we have basic services. I don't want to wait for their generosity to find out if I can get help. Yeah, I understand that. Well, I'm afraid we're going to take a break. Be back soon. From all the presenters and the team behind Women's radio station, thank you for listening. You've been the most amazing audience with your sparkling enthusiasm and support. So from our hearts, we would like to wish you a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year full of joy and surprises. I'm Tamina Zaman, founder of Empower and Enrich. When it comes to money, do you clam up or get confused? Do you wish you could save more money or are you hoping you have enough for retirement? You are not alone. Many women want to be smarter with their cash, but just don't know where to start. Start@empowerandenrich.org you will find a host of options to help you take charge of your finances and learn how to put your money to work for you in an easy, affordable way. Get in touch with me@empowerandenrich.org and let's change your future together. Hi, my name is Michelle Bartlett, the founder of Live Laugh Love Ladies Club. We're looking for ladies to link arms across the globe. This is a new vibrant brand connecting women socially. Our club members enjoy great food, fun and inspiring speakers while making friends of all generations. 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We would love you to join our mailing list or become a sponsor or just buy a ticket to one of our shows. The website is www.germanstreettheatre.co.uk UK women's radio station is a not for profit community interest company. Supporting women is our passion. We're currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help. Welcome back to the three Js. And we're discussing women and anger. And are we going to discuss business now? Women in business who get angry or. Yes. And generally looking at. Or women who don't get angry or try to not get angry. Well, we were looking at the attitude towards people that get angry, weren't we? Perhaps we could look at other areas, other scenarios in. Well, has it ever happened to you where you've actually, for some reason at work you've been. You've felt the need to show your displeasure? No, no. The sort of work that I do, you can't do that. It's not like an office or something, you know, where there's lots of people working. It's much more one to one work that I do. So you can't show your anger anyway? Not in the way that Serena did. No, no, no. I feel that when I have been in the workplace and have got maybe legitimately angry and frustrated and voiced it, that it's definitely not gone down well and it's been kind of even held against me and brought back to haunt me. And I felt that as a woman, if you get angry with a man, they can have a bruised ego. Whereas I think that I've had to take anger from men and that's being considered to be okay. And I do think angry women are looking at very differently. And I think now in the workplace I'm very careful not to get angry. So in a way it makes me more disappointed Honest, actually, because I'm less prepared to say what I think in case I do get angry or get into an altercation. I think as a woman, in order to kind of get work and keep work, I, I think I do need to subdue any tendency to get angry or show emotion. I don't. Well, I mean, I'm more. When I'm at work, I'm not so much angry as sort of feeling under pressure because I work in the NHS and there's lots of cutbacks and if you would get to get angry at work, I think you might get in a lot of trouble actually, because, I mean, there's having sensible, grown up discussions about how you feel and anger is, isn't really acceptable in most workplaces, even in the discussion, doesn't it? Yeah. Or, you know, or a case conference or something like that where you have a, you know, you take your problems to a HR or something like that. And if I've noticed that, because I work in occupational health, so a lot of the people that come along are very, well, they're mostly stressed rather than angry, but they're angry because they feel they're not being listened to more than because of the actual work. So is there a difference between whether you get angry with a patient or with colleagues? Well, I don't deal with patients because it's occupational health. We deal with employees of hospital trusts. So you don't meet patients? No, we don't meet patients, no, no. So it's the people that deal with the patients that are the, that have the problems, you know, because they're under a lot of pressure to fulfill their duties with less staff, less support, perhaps longer hours. So, yeah, I think it's quite a difficult place now to show any emotion in, you know, other than sort of going along with everyone, you know, I think in some ways as well that the people that create the very difficult, stressful situations that one might be angry with are so far removed. There is no way to actually address the people that are creating the difficulties that you have in your everyday working situation. It's the managers above the managers, probably. Yeah, I find myself in that situation. Situation because it's not even the people that are just immediately above me. It's, it's kind of this gray kind of culprit thing that is so far away, you know, that there's no way that you can, and you know, it's nobody to be properly angry at because they're not there. I think there are, in small organizations you can be very close to the person of power who is probably a big ego. So that's. That can be quite difficult. You can't get angry at them when you do have access to them. And one thing that I found to calm me in the workplace is that I'm working for a small charity. And a lot of my time now is spent communicating with volunteers and ambassadors for the organization. And I've actually realize how patient I need to be with the ambassador because they're not paid, they're doing it all out of goodwill. And it actually creates a better manager in me when I know these people are not being paid. They're doing goodwill, they're doing their best, and they're really nice people. And I find there's this very gentle method of management essential. And some of them are retired professional people who can use computers and did so in the workplace. And there's other people who are not computer literate at all. And they have to get the same kind of information out of both of them and they need to be managed very differently. But it has actually brought out a kind of very patient side in me, just being grateful for what people are doing rather than manage them in a workplace where you have people on top of you who are putting huge pressure on you to come up with results. So then you're putting the pressure down on people. And I try to be kind, but you can't always do that. You don't have that sort of time to stop and explain to people and spend time talking to them. So I do actually quite enjoy that area of my life. And I do. I don't actually feel that frustrated with these volunteers who can't use spreadsheets because they don't. I'm the one that's paid to have the knowledge and to. I think actually most people don't have the need to show actual anger in workplaces. Do you think, I mean, do you think it's common that people storm out of offices, throw things at people? I don't think they would be too afraid to. I mean, it's not like the 70s where I think. I think people probably were a bit more. I think people who can, will and do. But I think it's actually, it is becoming rarer than it used to be. And I think it is men who are probably older who did that, who have used to being in positions of power that weren't challenged and they were pretty secure in jobs. And I have seen throughout my work nice and flat, very bad behavior. But I think it is getting less. But I think younger men are actually Better and better behaving or it doesn't come out in that way. If they're angry now, it isn't to your face. It something happens behind your back as well which can kind of press buttons in you to be hugely angry that somebody's done something behind your back or said something that undermined you and then you get angry back. But there is this kind of. On surface it seems more like it's more civilized. Yeah, I think a lot of all the sort of stress, you know, they're always talking about workplace stress, aren't there? And how people need support and they need therapists and you know, the firms will supply it for them and you know, there's a lot of depression and how this affects the heart and. But I think at the root of all of this is exactly what we're talking about. It's suppressed anger because people don't feel safe enough to be able to bite when they feel it. You know, it might just be something silly like somebody's walked too close to you, but you don't say anything. You know, people sort of bite their lip and all of those things build up and they become stress, they become depression and people have nervous breakdowns and then they end up sort of can't cope at all and they time out. I agree with you because, because it's also these days more and more people are insecure in the workplace in what the so called gig economy, which makes everything really flexible and wonderful for us according to bosses, but it doesn't. It means that people may be on zero hours contracts so they don't want to have any problems with their immediate supervisor because they may not give the shifts given to them the next week or you're on a short term contract that works get renewed or you know, it can be ended at short notice. So you actually, and I think it's like younger people have been conditioned to accept these sort of working conditions that I don't think was the case when I was younger. You were in a position where you could actually say what you thought or ask for things to be changed. And I think, well, there was much greater availability of jobs then. I think now there seems to be less availability of jobs and certainly in terms of getting a permanent job for life where you actually feel secure to be yourself, to give your opinions, look down upon if they've been in a job for too long, you know, what's wrong with you? Why didn't you move on after three years like everybody else? You know, if you've been there for 10 years. Then it's almost apologizing for having been there for so long. And there was one woman in one situation, this was about five or six years ago and she was, she was let go. She'd been there too long. They wanted new people. That's quite common. That happens to older people often because they're senior and they're paid more and they can replace you with somebody who's younger, who's on a lower pay grade. And once that happens, it's quite hard to get another job if you're up older and also you're usually more loyal. So it's like you probably haven't thought about doing any other alternative. Well, it does get harder to move jobs the older you get. Now you do tend to stay because it isn't easy to move into another job. Well, I'm afraid we're going to have to wrap it up because we've come to the end of open discussion this week. And if you've got any questions for the open discussion presenters, please please email presenters@womensradiostation.com or tweet us. Womensradiostationstn and this is the 3J saying goodbye from Julia and Judith Walker and Joy. Women's radio station is looking forward to a great 2019 with more shows coming your way. All the presenters and the team behind each program would like to say a big thank you for listening. We are the voice of women worldwide and we cannot be without you. The journey has just begun with more exciting programs soon to be revealed. Women's radio station the voice of women worldwide. I'm Isabelle Manevy, an executive coach. Do you want to change a negative into a positive? We can do this by coaching you to rewire your brain using simple visualization techniques. In 20 years of practice, I seen this transform lives. For more information look on Women's radio website. Call me on 079-8442, 2171. I'm listening. Mirai Bilim we are a virtual PA consultancy. We provide remote administrative services. Our offering is diverse. We manage your calendar, we update your client database. We take care of your property in France and in London. We also offer bookkeeping and translation services. Would you like to know more? Please call 077-8684-8998 for further information. Miray be limited making the life of the business owner successful. Do you need mediation? We are the a project charity. We provide convict resolution and community engagement services. 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To donate simply head to our website. Every little will help. You may have heard of Alexander Fleming, the guy who discovered penicillin because he couldn't be bothered to wash his dishes before going on holiday. But you might have not heard of Margaret Hutchinson Rousseau, the chemical engineer who invented a way to mass produce penicillin. Before her, at any one time, only 10 people in the world could be treated with penicillin. It's Hutchison Rousseau who was responsible for saving literally millions of lives with her invention. But she's always been overshadowed by a man.