Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S8 Ep13: Bookshelfie: Laura Coryton

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Feminist campaigner and founder of Sex Ed Matters, Laura Coryton discusses the power of sisterhood, the books which have inspired her campaigning and why sex education in schools still needs to evolve. In 2014, Laura led the petition ‘Stop Taxing Periods’ to end tampon tax, which gained over 300,000 signatures and support from major political figures including Barack Obama. The campaign successfully lobbied the government to abolish the tax in 2021, before which they established the ‘Tampon Tax Fund’, through which almost £100 million pounds was donated to female-focused charities. Laura is an Obama Foundation European Leader and stood in the 2024 parliamentary election as the Labour Party candidate in Richmond Park. Her first book Speak Up! was published in 2019 and aims to inspire the next generation of female voices. Laura regularly speaks at schools about the experience and challenges of being a female campaigner, to advise and empower girls who might want to start their own campaigns or get involved with politics. Laura’s book choices are: ** Double Act by Jacqueline Wilson ** The Inseparables by Simone de Beauvoir ** The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath ** Bone Black by bell hooks ** Women and Power by Mary Beard Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season eight of the Women’s Prize’s BookshelfiePodcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is the biggest celebration of women's creativity in the world and has been running for over 30 years.  Don’t want to miss the rest of season eight? Listen and subscribe now! You can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org - every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops.  Recorded May 2025. This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic. We're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com.com. I rate to him to ask him to support the petition, maybe take it to Parliament, and he posted a letter that arrived about three or four months later and he basically said, this is nothing to do with him and he doesn't really care about it. I mean, he didn't say in those exact words, but that's like the meaning, was the meaning of the letter. I've kept the letter as well. I put it in my book actually just to kind of showcase the failures that you can run into when you're campaigning.

This is the Women's Prize for Fiction Bookshelphie podcast supported by Bayleys. Join us in celebrating women's writing from around the world in the 30th anniversary year of the Women's Prize for Fiction, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives. I'm Vic Hope and I am your host for Season 8 of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks inspiring and brilliant women to share the five books by women that have shaped them and their lives. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about. the books you should be adding to your reading list. Today, I'm joined by Laura Corrieton, MBE. Laura is a feminist campaigner, author and founder of the relationship and sexual education

social enterprise Sex Ed Matters. In 2014, Laura led the petition stop taxing periods to end tampon tax, which gained over 300,000 signatures and support from major political figures, including Barack Obama. The campaign successfully lobbied the government to abolish the tax in 2021. before which they established the Tampon Tax Fund, through which almost £100 million was donated to female focus charities. Laura is an Obama Foundation European leader and stood in the 2024 parliamentary election as the Labour Party candidate in Richmond Park. Her first book, Speak Up, was published in 2019

and aims to inspire the next generation of female voices. Laura regularly speaks at schools about the experience and challenges of being a female campaign. to advise and empower girls who might want to start their own campaigns or get involved with politics. Laura is also an ambassador for the Eve Appeal, a charity that raises awareness of and funds research into gynecological cancers. Laura, welcome. It's such a pleasure to have you on the sofa today and you brought your books as well. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, ready to go, sticky tape, gnaut. I love that, yes. Well, are you in kind of study mode?

because, you know, you recently started your doctorate at Royal Holloway. So I imagine a lot of your reading is now being dictated by that. Can you tell us a little bit about your thesis? Yeah, definitely. I'm 100% in reading mode and study mode and, like, highlighting books, which my dad would be very upset about. No, I'm here for, I mean, I always get told off for like underlining, highlighting, highlights, lots of sticky notes, lots of holding pages.

Yeah, I actually love that. You know, there was a book that I found with my granddad's, and he did the same thing. He underlined a lot of text and wrote his notes in the book. And I was like, oh, now I can read his thoughts that I never got a chance to talk to him about when he was alive. Just like a book on top of a book. You've got a whole other layer of history there. Definitely, definitely. So I love it. So ever since then, I've started doing it in books. So, yeah, so the doctorate is all about sex education and reimagining sex education.

So it's fit for the 21st century. So it's inclusive, it's diverse. It's challenging as well. And it's helpful to students in navigating the reality of sex and relationships today. I just think that sex education has so much power and could do so much good. good. It has a long way to go. It has a long way to go. Yes, exactly. But you've been at the forefront of that for quite some time now. Why is it important to you? It's important to me because I wish that I had had really good sex education in schools. I think a lot of my experiences in life would have been better, especially in relationships would have been better had I had that really, really good understanding of consent, of like, what expectations we should have in relationships when I was at school.

and I know that is also true for almost every single woman I know especially and a lot of the men that I know as well. So yeah, just trying to like create some kind of a change that hopefully will spark like a wider movement around changing sets education. And I wanted to be part of that. Lots of other people are involved as well. While you're studying and you know you have written a book yourself, are you also finding time to read just for yourself outside of your thesis? Well, if I'm being honest, like all the books I'm reading for my thesis, a book that I'd want to read any week.

Well, that's great. So it's really helpful. So it's just given me the time to just read what I want to read now, which is great. And I'm absolutely loving it. I've only just started in January. But yeah, I would definitely recommend it for any book lovers reading who want to, you know, have a little stifend for the reading that they're doing. And I've noticed actually, looking down your list now,

you've chosen quite a few nonfiction books in your selections to discuss today, a lot of them obviously related to what you do. does your reading tend to skew more towards nonfiction, do you think? I think so. I love nonfiction. Having said that, I do love the fictional books I've chosen, The Inseparables and, you know, the bell jar and lots of other books that kind of reflect on the reality of, like sex said, basically topics in real life,

but kind of take it into a more fictional universe, I guess, that highlights the problems probably greater than we would be able to through nonfiction. So yeah, I like both. I do tend to like nonfiction more, but maybe that gives me a slightly different like skew on the fictional world. And yeah, the writers as well that can write both fiction and nonfiction is like amazing. I don't know how they do. But yeah, in awe of that too. Well, your first bookshelfy book is a piece of fiction that you've watched today. It's taking us way back. But it's by an author who has since written some nonfiction as well. She wrote a memoir not long ago. It's double-acted by Jacqueline Wilson.

And Jacqueline Wilson is a prolific children's author famed for tackling difficult topics for teens, perhaps better known for iconic character Tracy Beaker. In double act, though, first published in 1995, Ruby and Garnett are 10-year-old twins. They're identical, they do everything together, but they couldn't be more different. And when everything around the twins is changing so much, can being a double act work forever? Now, Jacqueline Wilson is such a staple of many childhoods. I think she's an absolute legend with a whole library of memorable books. But what was it about this particular book, which really stuck with you? Well, I'm actually also a twin, so that sort of helped, I guess.

And it just really shows the power of sisterhood, I think. That's what I get from that book. The power of sisterhood in allowing you to be more maybe than you would otherwise have been able to imagine that you could be. And that's what my twin does for me or did for me back then. is also what my like other friends and support group does for me today. So yeah, I think it's the importance of working with other people to create something bigger, which I think is just such an important message for young readers. It's so interesting that you say your group of friends have almost taken up that mantle of what a sister can be.

Has that changed? That's something that's developed over time. So when you were younger, you saw that as simply that your twin is your sister. And it's something so much more now. Definitely, definitely. It includes like men as well. And like sisterhood, I think, yeah, it just is that wider support network that you weave throughout your life and kind of expands. And yeah, that's definitely what I see today. And it's partly why the campaigning has been so successful, I think, because we've got this support network that helps me deal with all the challenges and all the failures throughout the campaigning that I've had to experience.

And yeah, they're real sounding boards and cheerleaders as well. And they keep you accountable for your mistakes too, which is important. So yeah, sisterhood's so important throughout your life, definitely. Looking back growing up as a twin, could you resonate with Ruby and Garnett's relationship, the highs and the lows? How is it similar or different to your life growing up as a twin? Yeah, that's a really, really good question. You know, I think that being a twin is like the best thing because you're born with your best friend, basically. And it's amazing.

But at the same time, it does present its unique challenges with finding your own identity separate from your twin. I remember when I first went to university, we went to different unies. And my first week at uni was so challenging because they were the first nights that I'd really like spent time by myself. Ever. Like I shared a room with my sister for my whole life, basically. And up until then, I could count the nights I'd spent like by myself on one hand up until that point because I was either at my house with my sister or I was like a friend's house

or whatever. So yeah, I think that's where uni was quite pivotal for me. that's when I started the campaigning, the tampon tax campaign, because you almost have to reinvent yourself away from the identity of your twin. And, yeah, that can be very, very challenging and scary. But once you revel in it, that's when the real, like, growth comes. And that's where the tampon tax campaign was kind of born as a second twin in a weird way, I guess. I mean, actually, I do want to talk about what sparked your activism,

because even literature, even books, I look at someone like Jacqueline Wilson. And I remember that she tackled unashamedly some of the harder topics, some taboos. There was a rebellious streak to her writing. And for me, that taught me that I could speak up. Can you remember that activism being sparked? Definitely. There were so many different campaigns that I was learning at university that made me just reflect on my whole life worth of sexism that I'd sort of experienced,

but not been able to put words to those experiences. And learning about not just different forms of sexism, through politics, which was what I studied at university, but also the people that stood up to campaign against him throughout history was just so inspiring. And that's when I got really into the No More Page 3 campaign, which was amazing, the Banksnote petition, which was amazing, and supporting all these other petitions and campaigns.

And I just thought that is really inspiring but also fun, which is important to find the joy in campaigning, even in serious topics. And I just thought, you know, maybe I could give it a go. Never in a million years that I think the petition would be successful, let alone spoken about by, you know, President Obama. But I just thought I'd give it a go. And if it sparked one person to talk confidently about periods, then it would be worth it. It's been so many more than one. Well, you co-founded Sex Ed Matters with your twin sister Julia.

Tell us a little bit about the work that you do in schools discussing consent, particularly. Yes. Yes. So I'm so passionate about this because, as I say, they're basically workshops or conversations that I really wish that I'd had in school. And we cover lots of topics, specialise in consent, relationships, a lot based on Bell Hooks' book All About Love, which I know wasn't on the list, but I just thought I bring it. It's nice to just have any bag all the time I think. That is one that should always be on the person. Definitely.

And yeah, so we talk about relationships. We have like a healthy relationships pop quiz. And we put statements on the board that have been circulated a lot through pop culture, I think. and, you know, online and that kind of thing. And we ask the students to stand up if they agree that these statements are reflective of a positive, healthy relationship, sit down if they think it's a toxic trait potentially and kind of put the hands up if they think it's somewhere in the middle.

And we just get so many interesting responses from that. One statement will be that, is it toxic for your partner to have friends of the gender that they're attracted to or genders that they're attracted to? And we always get so, many controversial answers to that. We had almost a fight breakout once. So people are really passionate about the idea that, you know, if you're dating someone and they have friends that the genders that they're attracted to or the gender that they're attracted to, that that is like

a betrayal and like men and women can't just be friends. That's not possible. Which is so interesting. And an assumption that we're trying to challenge and break really, you know, what is the point of friendship? And should gender really be in the equation when you're kind of trying to pick your friends, all about trust, all about, well, everything really that Bell Hooks talks about. And yeah, it's just so interesting to kind of help students unlearn the misunderstandings of consent that we have just so ingrained throughout society. I always think about the fact that when we had sex education at school, no one ever told us that we were allowed to enjoy sex. It was always seen as this huge danger because it ends in either at the time teenage brinket

pregnancy or an STI. And so the notion that it could be pleasurable for women, we knew that there was this, we knew there was a substance produced by the man. So that was like a hard, solid fact that they had enjoyed it. The fact that we didn't know was probably the cornerstone of why we didn't understand consent. Because then how are we supposed to know what's a good or a bad experience? There's so much that wasn't done right. And looking back, I know that. Do you think things have changed? I think some things have changed. So we've got the new curriculum now. In 2020, Justin Greening brought in the new curriculum, which had been brought in after 20 years of no change whatsoever to the curriculum. So some things have changed, but a lot has stayed the same. We still hear a lot

in schools that boys and girls are separated, especially in primary schools. The girls are taught about periods and the boys. I still don't know what the boys are taught about, if I'm being totally honest. So we hear that a lot and there's so many problems with that including that sends the message then that topics like periods are just for women to hear about and like we should be silent about them in public spaces

and in front of men and they're an embarrassing topic we should keep it to ourselves which is like how period poverty begins really. There's a lot of research on this as well that shows a lot of students feel that sex education is still too little, too late and too biological. Our SDI

education today is based off of the SDI education brought about after the First World War, really interestingly, you can still find posters that were the original posters circulated in public spaces and in schools back then. And they have pictures of women and they basically say that any of these women can have an SDI and men should protect themselves. That's the messaging. That's the messaging. That's the messaging. And, you know, she's a bag of trouble is literally the slogan on one of the posters. And it kind of has this incognito a woman could be anyone so long as they're a woman, they can't be trusted.

So that kind of narrative still resonates in the classrooms today. Sogeny. Yeah, the misogyny is unreal. And yet it's still a message that we can see in the classrooms today, not quite as overt or obvious, but it's still, you know, definitely there. Oh, we see it on the internet. We've got a real problem at the moment, actually. And you can see where the root of it is.

Definitely. Definitely. I do however feel so inspired by the younger generations. When you talk about the conversations that they're having and the way things are changing, I think we've got to have hope and you're doing the work so you're driving that hope. Oh well that's like very kind of you, but you're so right. I'm always so inspired by the students in the classroom. We also run a campaigning course for students. So we like to teach sex ed through campaigning, kind of like the Tampa Tax campaign. So we don't just focus on the really kind of scary topics like sexual harassment, consent issues as well, but rather we look at what can students do to change the

culture of their school or their community or change the law perhaps when they see there needs to be a change in the law. And we kind of give them the tools to make that change happen. And through that campaigning course, students have come up with such brilliant ideas. There's one group in the feminist sandbatch group that have come up with a campaign to ban school uniform from being used in pornography due to like the messages about hypersexualization of girls that that kind of creates which is absolutely incredible there's a lot of other students at the cooper school if I can shout them out they have done amazing things to get period products all over the school when anyone's a student needs them free products for students so yeah there's a lot that students have

done they even wrote a blog at monica lenin msps a website on period poverty and what scotland has done to change and tackle period poverty and what we can learn from that and do here because you know period products are free all across scotland but they're not in the rest of the UK um i went to a really remote lock in Scotland recently my partner is Scottish and in the bathroom there in the middle of nowhere there's free period products but in London we don't get them in the public spaces here like how is that true so yeah lots it needs to change and definitely young people are driving that change well on the subject of change your next bookshelfy book is by a true trailblazer, a trailblazing feminist, the brilliant Simone de Beauvoir. I'm going to talk about

the inseparable. Never published in Simone de Beauvoir's lifetime. The lost novel from the author of the second sex tells the story of the real life friendship that shaped one of the most important thinkers and feminists of the 20th century. When Andre joins her school, Sylvie is immediately fascinated. They talk for hours about equality and justice, war and religion. They lose respect for They're teachers. They build a world of their own. But as the girls grow into young women, the pressures of society mount threatening everything. Now tell us why you love this book. I kind of see this book as like the adult double act. It's almost, it's a sisterhood again. Exactly. Exactly. It's the same message. You hardly ever see like such strong female friendship

and what that can do to your world and how that can really change your life so dramatically. I read this when I was on holiday with my friend, Anna, one of my best friends, and I finished it there, which I just thought was really fitting as well. And yeah, just, again, tells the exact same story, really, of the power of female friendship and what a difference that can make. And what role does female friendship sisterhood? And like you said actually at the beginning, friendship in general, because it can be male friendship as well, play in your campaigning and activists. And how do you support each other?

It's played such a pivotal role. So I started the Tampon Tax Petition when I was at university. Literally started it in second year in my like dorm room, I guess, when it was raining and just sort of like shared it with my roommates at the time. And we kind of crafted the whole narrative and went through all the highs and lows together. We went through organizing our very first protest together. The police coming to that protest just because actually someone had like dropped their sunglasses. But we thought they were going to like really kick up a fast when they didn't. So, you know, when Nigel Farage started to get involved with the campaign and that was just like a really awful time.

They were there really, really helped me to understand what the next steps could be and like what the consequences of each kind of option could be as well. So yeah, they were so a part of this campaign and have from day one. And yeah, that's friends of all genders as well, which is I think what's made the campaign be something that anyone can support and get behind no matter who you are, which has also led to. to it being successful, I think. You mentioned Nigel Farage there. I am interested in, actually, what the reaction from male politicians has been when you approach them about tampon tax, because politics is very male-dominated.

Still, you know, you've famously been supported by Barack Obama, but did you have that same kind of support from MPs here? Such an interesting question. So when I started the petition, I think it was after about a year of it being started. So we had a couple of petition signers, maybe like a couple thousand, but not the hundreds of thousands that we have now. I wrote to my local MP at the time, or the MP in Devon where I grew up. And I won't mention his name, you could probably guess he was from the fact it's Devon, but still,

I wrote to him to ask him to support the petition, maybe take it to Parliament. And he posted a letter that arrived about three or four months later, and he basically said, this is nothing to do with him, and he doesn't really care about it. I mean, you didn't say it in those exact words, but that's like the meaning was the meaning of the letter. I've kept the letter as well. I put it in my book actually just to kind of showcase the failures that you could run into when you're campaigning. So that was a big blow because I thought if my own constituency MP does not want to take this forward, then are any other MPs ever going to do it? It's demoralising. Did you expect his support? I expected at least a meeting maybe to show like some interest in it. He could say ultimately that he doesn't have the time for it.

would understand that. But just from the very off to say he can't really do anything to help was quite surprising. But, you know, we have also had some support. If I'm being honest, it was really difficult to get MP support. It wasn't until we got like 100,000 signatures that I could then ask every single petition signer to email their MP. And I did like a draft email so that hopefully it would save people time and that more people would do it. That's when we started to get interest. But even then, it took one MP to say yes, Paula Sheriff. And if she hadn't have said yes, if she hadn't raised it in Parliament, I don't think we would have succeeded if it wasn't for her. And we had probably about like at least 100 notes from different MPs before her.

So yeah, just if you're a campaigner listening and that's happened to you, just like keep going. You just need the one yes that can change everything. Hearing that development, that growth from grassroots and all those knockbacks, all those challenges. it is so inspiring, but you realize just how difficult it is. And so many, it's very interesting, so many successful grassroots campaigns like the Tampon Tax Petition, they are led by women, that resilience I see so often in these brilliant women. Why do you think that kind of energy and leadership doesn't always carry over into the politics

side of things? Yeah, it's so interesting. you know, I kind of took campaigning almost as like kind of therapeutic. You know, you think about all of the sexes and you face through your life and other prejudices as well. And you just think if anya can be part of the change, even a small change, hopefully that can have ripple effects. So I think that's maybe why we see so many campaigners who dedicate their time, volunteer a lot of efforts to make changes. And we maybe haven't seen it so much in the political sphere. But I do think the more politicians we have that are female and the more women,

and we have standing up and, you know, representing their community in local politics as well as national, the more change we'll see in that aspect as well and the more resilience that we'll see in politicians and dedication to these kind of like really everyday problems that people are facing. Do you feel like reading Simone de Beauvoir and her philosophies, do you think that's impacted your understanding of yourself as a feminist? Definitely, absolutely. And again, like seeing her novel as well as her, like, you know, second sex and other philosophical works that she's done has really helped her, yeah, shape my understanding

of feminism where I fit in that and also my identity as well, definitely. That's why I love the like non-fiction world in feminism too, because it really helps to make sense of the world that we've lived through and give vocab and language to the problems that we've faced maybe without even realising it. Baileys is proudly supporting the Women's Prize for Fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people.

Bayleys is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream, or paired with your favourite book. Check out baileys.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. Laura, your third book, Shelfy book, is The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. The Bell Jar is another seminal feminist work. It's a feminist novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sylvia Plath.

When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York fashion magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she'll finally realize her dream to become a writer. But in between the cocktail parties and the piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. She finds herself spiraling into depression. as she grapples with difficult relationships, and a society which refuses to take women's aspirations seriously. This is actually quite, it's quite harrowing story we know,

but you've actually described it as a comfort book. Why is that? Why did you choose it today? I think it's because it articulates the frustrations of the world that, like, I see a lot in everyday life, but haven't really known how to describe it before reading this book. That thing again about finding the words to articulate it, And you know that you're not alone. There's solace in that.

Yeah. That's comfort, I guess, in its way. A hundred percent, definitely. You know, we were working with a school actually a few years ago, and they were saying that they had asked all their students to read the Beljar and how they'd had, like, outrage from some parents and, yeah, other groups. And he, the teacher there was telling me how much he valued this book and just kind of really spoke out for it and encouraged students to read it despite this backlash.

And I just thought that was really inspired. as well. And I just felt such like a bond with that school then in terms of they're giving their students the language to speak. These problems they're speaking, they're seeing and experiencing as well, just like I did when I first read it. Yeah, and there's certain passages as well that I just still think of today about how Esther kind of looks at these people that are working in this fancy jobs, fancy industries, and one of them kind of check themselves out in a car window as if to question if they still exist or not. And now whenever I see someone doing that is all think about. I think it's great. That's just an existential glance there at the corner.

Do you remember when you first read it and the comfort that you got at the time? Yeah. And I think it was also tied to the town pontage campaigning in that there's so much about the world that's frustrating that we want to change and it can feel so overwhelming. But then just focusing on that one thing that you can change, pulling the levers of power that you do have access to even if they're very like localized or seemingly small and seeing the change that focusing on that one aspect that you want to make a difference in can really make. It just feels as I say like really quite therapeutic. I like to think about campaigning as if you're like a tree surgeon, which might sound a bit strange. But if we think about sexism as if it were just a massive tree,

casting its shade on society, it's got its roots throughout, you know, the history of time ever since antiquity and it's so far deeply rooted within societies and throughout history that it seems so overwhelming like we can't do anything about it, we just have to accept that it's there. But if every person just focused on one branch that they want to take down, eventually we would have no tree left. That's the sort of imagery that kind of keeps me going with campaigning. And I think that it can just make a huge difference. If we all focus on that one thing that's within our sphere of influence and power, then we would

make a massive difference together and we are making a big difference together as it is. I like that analogy. We can go out there. I imagine us all just each snapping off just a little ranch. It's just a little bit or you know what? Let's get a sore. Saw away at that. The story is believed to be semi-autobiographical, the Veljar, reflecting Plath's own mental health struggles. With your book, Speak Up from, 2019. How much of the advice that you give is based on your own experience. and your own feelings? So it's kind of a half and half, I'd say.

It's half like just practical steps. So it follows five steps of campaigning. And it will hopefully be helpful to any young person who wants to campaign about anything. So yeah, there are five really practical steps. But then weave throughout those steps there are my experiences of going through those steps with the Tampont Taps campaign and the kind of failures we went through,

how we overcame them, so that if young people face similar failure, or challenges. Hopefully they'll feel equipped to overcome them. So that's sort of the first half of the book. And the second half of Speak Up is my reaction to a book that I had growing up, which was a book I'd found when I went home not that long ago before I wrote the book. And it was a book about how to be a girl, essentially. And there was like chapters on like how to put your makeup on and all this kind of stuff that like what didn't seem to out of place when I was like growing up in the 90s. But now it was just really quite shocking. So it's

just the complete opposite of that. And it's about, you know, dealing with trolling, especially as a woman who's campaigning. And lots of reasons why girls perhaps wouldn't want to speak up. It's kind of just tackling those issues at the start. So hopefully they'll go into campaigning feeling more equipped and able to really speak up and speak their mind and make the change that they want to see.

Would you have liked to have had that to read when you were younger? Definitely. If I had read that, you know, I think back and I think, I wish I started campaigning earlier. And people were like, you started it when you were at uni. But I really think I would have started as a student at school. Had I had a book like this, definitely. Now, we mentioned Bell Hooks a little earlier,

but the book that you've brought today is actually a different collection. Your fourth bookshelfy book is Bone Black by Bell Hooks. One of her foundational works, Bone Black is Bell Hook's Girlhood Memoir, showing her journey to become the pioneering writer, we know growing up in the American South, against the backdrop of racial segregation. in a world where daughters and fathers are strangers under the same roof.

Hooks uncovers the solace to be found in solitude and the comfort to be had in the good company of books. Another iconic feminist writer, Bell Hooks, is so brilliant. Do you remember how you discovered this book? Yes, so I am obsessed with Bell Hooks. She's actually inspired a lot of the PhD. So the whole framework really that I'm looking at sex education is through Bell Hook. hooks and kind of learning from her insights and ideas about what love should be and all of that

kind of thing and how we can translate that into the curriculum today in schools. So yeah, I started with All About Love and have got like a little bookshelf of just dedicated to Bell Hooks. As you should. As you should. I just love her. She just writes with such love and compassion and open-mindedness and like such consideration. Like she's just amazing. Yeah. There's one person that people listening to this haven't read that we've spoken about today, I would definitely recommend Bell Hooks and pretty much any book that she's ever written. Like we said before, just carry her around with you. It's something that feels quite protective about having her on your person all the time.

What sort of new perspectives did you gain on Hooks and on life through Hooks after reading this memoir? So much. So as you say, it's a reflection sort of of her girlhood, I guess, in Segurgate South. And it just kind of brings the feeling to life. She even talks about like the feeling of holding her grandfather's hand and how, you know, that had impression upon her when she was younger. She talks also about how, to her child's mind, old men are the only men of feeling. And I think that's so interesting.

And, you know, when we go into schools and talk to boys, we went to an all boys school quite recently and we just did a session on masculinity. and the idea that boys should feel didn't come up once from the boys. You know, we were asking them, this is in a primary school, we were asking them who they want to be when they grow up, who influences their thoughts on who they want to be. And they were all referencing sports personas to the extent that I had to say, you know, no more footballers.

And then they chose Formula One car racer and no Formula One car races, and there was another one. So, and we talked about, you know, what does it mean to be successful? None of them spoke about family or feelings or happiness. It was all related to money, fame, and being physically able, being sporty, basically. So I just think that's so, so insightful from her that really the only men that we allowed to feel are the older generation of men. How does that change? I think it is changing sexism.

I mean, this is just, there's two sides of the same coin, isn't it? I suppose these gender stereotypes on women as well as men. And we've got to see it as the same conversation in order to change something and to help boys break free, basically, from these stereotypes. We quite often think about boys as being successful and, you know, maybe not necessarily needing the same support as women. And I think that is true. We need to tackle these problems differently. But, yeah, boys need a lot more space to discuss the stereotypes that they're facing and how they overcome them and how they redefine. in masculinity for themselves.

Out of curiosity, who do you find that girls reference most as their inspirations versus who boys reference? Well, it's really interesting with girls because we find actually that role models are like worse for them in terms of we've, we work, do a lot of work also with Oxford Brooks University and they've done research studies in over 100 schools across the country on this. And they've found that when girls have more role models, they're less likely to speak out or want to pursue their ambitions because they see the women in positions of power perhaps that they could see as role models and they see the backlash that they get and they think

I don't want to experience that even when it comes to like Michelle Obama or you know really really incredible like very very positive influence influence people they still feel the same it still holds them back potentially more because you wouldn't you wouldn't wish on anyone the the abuse and the trolling that some of these amazing women get. Yes, yes. And that's obviously particularly true of women of colour in these positions. You know, we know when it comes to MPs, for example, Diane Abbott gets over half the amount of trolling than all other female MPs put together.

So, yeah, it's a real big challenge that we need to overcome. And yeah, talking about trolling is really, really important too. You mentioned Michelle Obama there. In 2022, you became a European leader with the Obama Foundation. Can you tell us a bit about that? Oh my God, it's amazing. It's amazing, right? It's so amazing.

So, yeah, my, well, someone I used to work with actually. I used to work for Labour Party. Abner, she's now actually a cabinet member, and she's an incredible MP. She's brilliant now. Well, she's always been brilliant, but she's, you know, only recently become an MP. Yeah, she's fantastic, and she nominated me, basically,

for this program. And she let me know that it would be a great six months, but I didn't quite realize how life-changing it would be. So it's basically a six-month program where you are put together with lots of different leaders from across Europe, working on all different things from environmental projects to rights about forced marriages,

to other people looking at abortion rights as well. And then at the end, we get together in real life. And, yeah, we met President Obama, which was, like, amazing. I've still got number 44 tag on my bag, which I got from him being the 44th president. Oh, God, it was great. But yeah, he's so relaxed, so calm. Like, he's so positive about the future as well.

And, yeah, it's just amazing to see a president use his position of power to inspire and empower other leaders as well. That's really, really great. You've mentioned that. And actually, I know Varagabam is a big fan of Bell Hooks. I think he's said that. I love that you've, you know, picked another book by a poet, sort of poetry adjacent. And he's expressed how important poetry is in the way that we see the world. You mentioned that this book gives very powerful look at everyday racism.

We know that black women are more likely to experience period poverty. Through your campaigning and work around mental health, how have you seen that exemplified? And what can we do to support those communities and to make that better? Yeah. It's so interesting how period poverty affects different demographics, slightly differently. Sometimes you would be surprised at which demographics are more impacted than others. For example, we went into one school a couple years ago now, and the teacher was telling me, we went in there to talk about periods basically and to have a workshop about tackling period, poverty and inspiring period confidence. And the teacher told me about a week before I came into that school, she went into the bathrooms because the student was crying in the bathrooms.

And this student had parents who were from Ireland. And she went into the bathroom and she realized that this student had started her period before knowing what menstruation was. and she thought she was dying as you would. And the teacher kind of went in, explained what periods are, gave her period products to try and kind of, you know, see which one suit her best.

Two hours later, she got a phone call from that student's parents who basically told her off for giving the student that information about periods. And I know, they said she has to figure out for herself. Exactly. So, yeah, it's really, like, really shocking that this sort of thing is happening now. And it's happening in so many different demographics as well

within the country. which is why it's so important for all schools to talk about periods with all students, not just the female students, yeah, to inspire that confidence for kids to be able to talk about it with anyone if they need help and support. Laura, we have come to your fifth and final book today now, just having a little rifle through, a little thumb through to find it at the bottom there. It's Women in Power by Mary Beard, Britain's best-known classicist, a friend of the show I'm going to say, because we've had her on, and she was brilliant.

Mary Beard is also a committed and vocal feminist. With wry wit, she revisits the gender agenda and shows how history has treated powerful women from Medusa to Athena to Theresa May and Hillary Clinton, just like you just explained, actually. Beard explores the cultural underpinnings of misogyny, considering the public voice of women, are cultural assumptions about women's relationship with power and how powerful women resist being packaged into a male. template. And I think it's so interesting what you added before, how we don't really want to be them because of the risks that would mean putting ourselves up for. Tell us about why you chose this book. This book made the world make so much more sense to me. Thinking about sexism as something that has been with us for centuries really helps to make those everyday experiences

of sexism make more sense. And also to have a look at the way things have changed. Change makers throughout the centuries have really inspired changes that we feel and see and experience today, which kind of makes me feel more inspired to maybe create some more change for the next generation as well and pass that on. There is one line that I wondered if I could just read out, which I just love. She says that we need to think collaboratively about the power of followers and not just of leaders. And it means above all thinking about power as a verb to power, not as a possession, which I think is amazing. And yeah, as you say, kind of turning power from being something that maybe men hold and possess into something that we all do. And it's a collective action together.

That is going to be the thing that I think really makes big change and big waves. We do together. I mean, I really love your analogy of the truth. But I like this one too because I'm imagining, for me, I'm imagining a steam train. And everyone's sort of chugging along and powering it forwards together. It's so much more powerful as a verb. It's true. Yeah.

Speaking of which, speaking of women and power and being the change that you want to see and trying to move that forward. Last year you stood as the Labour candidate for Richmond Park. What was that experience like? It was a whirlwind because we didn't, I never thought that the election would come so soon. And so, yeah, it was really a whirlwind. But it's something that I really, really want to encourage other people to do, like especially the women listening to this like standing for parliament, standing for election on a local level or a national, it's so important to making that change and making sure that we have 50, 50 representation in parliament one day.

So yeah, I would really, really recommend it. It wasn't without its challenges, definitely. But yeah, it was something that I would absolutely do again and I would absolutely recommend to other people as well. You didn't win, but you did succeed in doubling Labor's vote, share. in that area. What do you consider as the success of that campaign? So we were kind of twinned with another constituency, which was Uxbridge and Ryslip. So yeah, Labor hadn't won that for decades. And our candidate there was Danny Beale and he was brilliant and we did win it by like a very, very small number of votes. I think it was about 60 votes or so. So that was

really exciting. And, you know, he was committed to, you know, create more funding for the local hospital there. He grew up in the area and he lives there his whole life and he's just secured that like a couple weeks ago. So that was really exciting as well. And I've seen him like in Parliament talk about, you know, AIDS, HIV, like all of these other topics that we wouldn't normally really see necessarily in Parliament in Westminster because there's such a stigma attached to them. So yeah, it's really exciting to see him bring that to life as well. But I'd also say about standing for election that there's a real connection, I guess, between that grassroots campaigning and then standing for election.

And I kind of wish we see more of that translation, I suppose, especially because when it comes to campaigning and grassroots campaigning, we're hearing more and more voices that we've never really heard before, especially when it comes to platforms like Change toorg, upon which we ran the Tampa and Tax campaign. And Change.org has done some research on who has created petitions on their site. They found that the majority of petitions on their site were created by men, but the majority of successful petitions,

those that reach their goals, are created by women, which is really exciting. And the majority of petition signers and sharers are also women. So we're seeing these different voices, yeah, that we maybe wouldn't have heard before. And because we have such a big platform now to create this democratic change, those voices are harder to ignore than ever before, which is just really exciting. I remember when I, for example, went home to Devon one time, one of my best friends, Paul, his mum told me that she supported the Tamptet's petition

because she tried to make this change happen when she was at school. And you can ignore a few hundred women maybe in Devon, unfortunately, but it's true. But you can't ignore 300,000 people that sign a petition. And that's what's really exciting. And there's this word clicktivism. I guess activism now has, like you say, a platform that is far wider and far louder as a result. How powerful does the online world in creating change nowadays? And can you harness that?

Like you say, there's this jump from activism, grassroots activism to politics. How can we harness that into more sort of traditional election? campaigning. It's a really, really good point. Clickimism is like, I don't really like the term because it kind of undermines the, it makes it sound trivial, doesn't it? Exactly. Exactly. It makes sound trivial or it makes it sound like, oh, you know, just these, all the people do is, you know, sign a petition when there's so much more that goes on. You know, we had, as I say, protests in real life. Like we had a whole coach side of people, supporters come from Scotland just for a protest in Downing Street one year. And we had these like political picnics at lunch times and stuff.

where we've all come together to sort of brainstorm what we would do next with the Tamper Tax campaign. So, yeah, there's so much more that goes on with an online petition than just the online petition that you see. And I think it's already changing politics. You know, we're already seeing more women stand for election than before. We're having, you know, women's networks and all different political parties to bring up the next generation of female politicians. And, you know, we've got the first female chance to now. Like, things really are changing, even if it's in small doses. it's still important to celebrate those small wins.

And yeah, we're definitely getting there. And it sounds like it's more a case of when rather than if you run again. But what policies? Sorry, just put you on the spot. And when you run again? Put it in the universe. Manifesting. What are the policies that you will be standing for?

And what do you feel can really cut through in your constituency with voters? Yeah, I mean, you know, you never know what's going to happen. but I would definitely, you know, hope that I would maybe run again one day. And I would just love to run on a lot of, like, feminist policies. It's the real big thing. And like, you know, inclusion policies. I think we're seeing kind of quite a row back from equality principles and ideas, especially given the Trump administration.

So really giving them more validity would be great. And really talking about topics like peer poverty, like consent and all these other topics. I think, yeah, we need more political willpower to, make changes in these areas. And as soon as we have that, then we will get it. As is the case in Scotland, as I say, where we have free period products everywhere, but we don't have that in England and Wales. All we need is the political willpower to make that happen. The willpower being, of course, a verb again. Yes. We're willing it. We're powering it. I do have to ask what's next for you because I know that you're obviously very busy with your PhD at the moment. Would you

write another book? What does the future hold? I would love to write another book. I would absolutely love it. But yeah, we'll have to wait and see really. So, yeah, just writing this PhD at the moment and running sex ed matters. And yeah, we'll see what comes. I'm just really, really hoping to kind of be a part of maybe the next iteration of the sex education curriculum in some way to make it as helpful as it can possibly be to young people to navigate the reality of sex and relationships and taking the stigma out of topics within the curriculum as well. And we're all here to try and help you power along that train, Laura, and also to take branches off that tree that's been shading us all. My final question for you, I do have to ask. There's a real range here, but if you did have to choose one book from your list as a favourite,

you can have a little rifle through again there since they're in front of you and they're all nicely annotated. Which would it be and why? I think, I mean, Bell Hooks. I mean, I know Bell Hooks All About Love was not actually one of the five, but it's kind of an extension of Bone Black. I think they would have to be my favourite. It's just because Bell Hooks has been such an important writer that's informed my campaigning and my work now, I'd have to say, yeah, I'd have to say Belle Hicks, I think.

And when we talk about taking that three down, she really is hacking away at it. Amazing. It's all in her work. Well, thank you so much for everything you do, actually, Laura. It's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you, but also I'm really in awe. I really am and keep doing that and inspiring the younger generations to help on that mission as well. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.

I'm Vic Hope, and you've been listening to the World Women's Price for Fiction Bootschelphie podcast, brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you for joining me for this episode. You'll find all the books discussed in our show notes. If you've enjoyed it, please leave us a rating or review to help other readers discover even more brilliant books by women. See you next time.