Woman’s Hour, Radio 4
Spices and spicy are not the same, cook and GBBO winner Nadiya Hussain points out.
I’m still trying to figure that one.
She was on Woman’s Hour promoting her new book and TV series where she takes just eight spices and whirls up a little magic.
She’s warm, friendly, approachable and tinged with just enough surprise at her own success that you warm to her.
Growing up as a Bangladeshi in Britain makes you feel part of a “grey group”... neither one thing or another, she said.
Being a proud, happy Muslim woman is something she feels she needs to hide. When there’s a terrorist attack, it’s as if she feels somehow responsible.
And that not belonging has followed her but she’s coming out of the shadow.
She paid tribute to the women who paved the way for her – her grandmother and her mother.
They are women, she says, who were completely overlooked. Her mother got a job and financial independence after she raised Nadiya and her sisters… she’s a firecracker, financial independence has given her so much confidence, she said.
It was a heartwarming interview in a week of little heartwarming news. A tribute to unseen women.
On the topic of unseen women, The Knock – also on Woman’s Hour – featured interviews with women affected by child sex abuse.
Campaigners say these women should be viewed as secondary victims.
What do you do when there’s a knock at the door and you hear that someone close to you – a father, son, or brother – has been accused of such abuse?
It can be shocking and so out of the blue.
The stories were heart breaking.
One woman described the shattering ripple effects of her brother’s abuse on her life.
Her decision to continue having contact with him was not easy, she said.
“You can’t say to people I’m really upset because my brother is a sex offender and I still love him.”
The taboo and the myths surrounding abuse continue.
“People were saying I must have known but I didn’t know. I love children but I didn’t want to be around them or touch them, I felt guilty.”
The programme heard that thousands of women have called a helpline asking what they could have done.
From the lightness of a Muslim woman on a meteoric rise who can’t quite believe it to shining a torch into very dark places – Woman’s Hour covers it all.
