Woman's Hour - 16/09/2026

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.

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and acclaimed documentaries to in-depth analysis and features. Visit BBC.com forward slash subscribe to find out more. Hello, I'm Neula McGovern, and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Just to say that for rights reasons, the music in the original radio broadcast

has been removed for this podcast. Hello and welcome to the programme. This morning, we'll hear the details of what Amnesty International is calling a landmark report. It has been released in just the past few minutes. It names 87 officials, it says, have committed crimes against humanity

during the Women Life Freedom protests of 2022. Also, our chief international correspondent, Lee Doucest, will be with us to discuss. Also today, Tai Paceouss, story, the much-anticipated novel of Rebecca F. Kwang. There is a hunger for family, culture, and

connection in this book. Her Chinese-American protagonist, Lily, tries to perfect her Mandarin to become more Chinese and understand her wider family more deeply. And I wonder if that's something you have experienced, trying to

connect the dots of who your family where and where you fit into that structure. Maybe it was through, learning your heritage language or through learning recipes that were handed down, maybe travelling somewhere significant

for your family's history? I'd like to hear it all. You can text the programme, the number is 84844 on social media or at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website. For a WhatsApp message or voice note, the number is 0300-100-444-4.

Or on most smart speakers, you can say Alexa, ask BBC sounds to send a comment. Here's a question as well. As a mum, what lengths would you go to to have a few minutes to yourself? Well, the climber,

Shauna Coxie, will hang off cliffs over open water. We're going to hear more from the first woman to complete the UK's hardest deep water solo climb and all that entails. Plus, sense and sensibility had its world premiere in London last night. Even if it was a late one, the screenwriter Diana Reid,

and the film's director, Georgia Oakley are on their way to talk to us about their beautiful film that I had the pleasure of seeing just the other day. Lots to talk about sisterhood, not the least of it. That's all coming up. But let me begin with a new report from Amnesty International, just released as I mentioned, that is laid bare its findings,

naming 87 Iranian officials, it says, should be criminally investigated for crimes against humanity during the crackdown that followed the death of the young Kurdish-Iran woman, Masa Amini four years ago today. Massa was 22 when she died in police custody after being arrested by the so-called morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly.

Her death sparked widespread protests across Iran. It led to hundreds of people being killed, including children. It inspired the global woman life freedom movement, which called for an end to compulsory hijab laws and other forms of discrimination and oppression against women. When I was joined just a short while ago by Rahabareni. She's a human rights lawyer and Iran researcher for Amnesty International and one of the authors of the report.

I started by asking Rahah why it was so important to publish this now. It is beyond time for the international community to end the normalisation of repeated mass protest killings in Iran. In this report, we have concluded that to crush the woman life freedom uprising, the Iranian authorities committed the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, imprisonment, rape and other sexual violence, and persecution on gender, political, ethnic and religious scrums. Impunity for these crimes against humanity paved the way for further atrocities in January, 2006. We believe that it is time for the international community to pursue international criminal justice,

and their failure on this front would be further devastating with people at risk of protest massacres in the face of a system that uses a policy of lethal force to crush dissent. So let's talk about this. There's a lot in that of what you're looking for. In this report, you name 87 officials who you say should be criminally investigated. Who are these people? Where do they sit within Iran's power structure?

We have identified 87 officials who must face criminal investigations based on an in-depth documentation of these crimes that were committed in three provinces that are home to Iran's Kurdish minority and Virginia was also from. And we've unpacked the chain of command behind the crimes committed. And based on this body of evidence, we've identified these officials. They include 10 national officials. who oversaw the crimes against humanity committed across the country, and the remaining 77 were from these three provinces that I mentioned.

They include 62 commanders of the security forces that led on deadly protest dispersals. These are the police force of Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We've also named 27 Minister of Interior officials, the then-minister of Interior, who is today the general commander of the IRGC, his deputy and provincial governors, deputy provincial governors and county governors. Let me note that most of these people remain in positions from which they can unleash further deadly repression. And some of them have even climbed up the chain of command since 2022. But we know how difficult it can be to investigate events inside Iran.

I'm sure for Amnesty International as well, considering some of the, work that you do. How did you gather and verify that, in fact, these people have done what you alleged they have done? This 1,000-page report is the result of one of the most extensive investigations that Amnesty International has ever conducted. We interviewed 270 people who included protesters, families of those killed, former detainees, rape survivors, other torture, Sue Barres, lawyers, activists, and medical workers on the ground. We expressed our gratitude to all of them for the trust. The majority of them were in Iran at the time of the interviews, and we conducted the interviews remotely through safe messaging applications in Persian. We also analyzed,

together with our evidence lab, over 2,000 videos and focused on over 400 verified videos that showed the conduct of the security forces, how they shot into peaceful crowds, how they fired metal pellets that are designed for hunting small animals, shooting protesters with them at close range, and how they subjected protesters to beating sexual violence and other cruelties. We also analyzed an extensive body of documentary evidence, including forensic records, leaked official documents and hundreds of official statements from the authorities that are featured in the report, which shows how they repeatedly praised the security forces and made calls to mop-up, sweep and crush protesters that they demonized as rioters, terrorists and even devils.

Did you reach out to the Iranian authorities for response to your findings? Yes. On the 4th of August, we shared our... key findings with the Supreme Leader and senior officials. We conveyed this letter through the embassy in London and we sought comments and responses and to date we haven't

received the response. But what do you want to happen now? I know you've mentioned in broad terms you're looking for international criminal justice, particularly crimes against humanity to be taken into account as you see it. But what path are you planning on taking

with that? Very specific. we are calling on the international community to pursue a comprehensive international justice approach. In principle, the situation of Iran must be referred to the international criminal court by the UN Security Council. However, as the Security Council is failing in its duty to prevent atrocities and pursue justice, and given the blocks within the Security Council, we are calling on the UN General Assembly to play its crucial. role and create an special international criminal justice mechanism for crimes against humanity in Iran. This is an urgently needed step, not only to pursue justice, but also to prevent further atrocities in the countries. So let's delve into that a little bit deeper. So you feel

the international criminal court cannot do what you wanted to do? Have I got that right, that it takes too long? Not that it takes too long. We are calling on a state to refer the country's situation to the International Criminal Court to call on the UN Security Council to do that. But the UN Security Council, specifically its permanence members, China, Russia, and now the US have a history of blocking such referrals. That is why the ICC pat is currently beyond reach for Iran. And that's why an alternative international criminal justice mechanism must be established by the UNGA. But if it's by the UNGA, you have the same permanent members? Then it wouldn't be a decision for the UN Security Council to make. Then this would be a

decision by member states, all member states of the UN General Assembly. They could mandate the UN Secretary General to conclude a treaty-based tribunal for Iran or through an innovative step that is possible legally they could create a tribunal through a UNGA, a UN General Assembly resolution. It sounds like a very ambitious project. Do you really think that might happen? It is ambitious, but we are firm that it is urgently needed. This demand is based on the experiences of victims, survivors who want justice and who look toward the international community. Rahab Barraini there from Amnesty International. We're listening to that interview is Lisa Doucette, the BBC's chief international correspondent. Good to have you back with us, Lees.

Now, we're just hearing opening details about that report. But do you think such a report could possibly have an impact? Well, it's as your questions indicated and her answers underline. This is a really extensive report and a report which gets details, which, as you pointed out, are very, very difficult to collect. And hence it is four years after these extraordinary protests, women, life freedom protests that only now is a report coming out, speaking about how many were killed and accusing a whole number of individuals at different levels of the security apparatus in Iran of being responsible. And of course, your listeners will be all too aware of the January protests this year people, investigators, individuals, media are still trying to piece together

what happened in these protests, which were much more brutal and with available figures caused far far more deaths. But it is important to document them, if only to say, don't forget that this happened because it did happen again. There was another wave of protest in Iran, and they seemed to happen every few years. And every time there is a, an uprising of people. There's always a different character. The women like freedom protest were very much led by women. Those extraordinary scenes, people must remember them of school girls tearing down photographs of the supreme leader,

Chaminet, and shouting death to the dictator, and women burning their headscarves. These were astonishing scenes. We did contact, I should say, as well, the Iranian embassy in London for response to the Amnesty Report, but we haven't heard back. But, you know, four years on, what would you say, Lees, is the legacy of Masa Amini? What a legacy of Masa Amini.

We've been to Iran four or five times, four times in the last year and a half. And what you see on the streets of Iran and you speak to Iranian women, they say this is because of Masa Amini, because of the protests. So many women, of all ages, are no longer wearing,

the headscarf. They're no longer wearing the long coats. They call the Montau, which basically hides all of the body. I, Nula, I lost track the last time when we were in Iran in June this year. How many women I saw, punk rockers, short-cropped hair, baggy jeans, body piercings, tattoos, hanging out on the streets, cafes full of women. You could have thought was a cafe in the heart of London. And when we asked women about this, they would say there's no going back. We're not going to put up with this anymore.

There was recently some reports that there had been a crackdown on you. They call it hijab, the headscarves by the Morality Police, but it was an isolated raid. And I checked again this morning. And for the most part, there's even cases where, you know, morality police on motorcycles. and we saw the motorcycles everywhere. They're posted now at key intersections,

and they rev their motors, sending a signal, don't you dare, don't you dare take to the streets as you did before? And sometimes they go up to women and say, your hijab is terrible. You have to put that on your hair. And they refuse. It's astonishing that you often look at protests around the world

and you say, what did they achieve? And you listen to the report by Amnesty International about the brutality of the, them and the losses, 377 deaths they said in their report, including children. Some people say it could be even higher. But those protests led by women did achieve something in Iran. Yeah, that's fascinating. Some of the pictures that you paint there when you talk about the cafes in the cities.

Is it the same outside the cities, Lees, do you think? Yes, we traveled outside the cities. And I should emphasize, there are many women who still wear the head to do, head to toe black chadores, that is their choice. There are still women who will go out and will wear perhaps modest clothing and a loose headscarf. But the point is that women are choosing to wear it. We went to the northeast and traveling on the way. We stopped at restaurants and places, and I would look around because I had the same

question as you. Is it just Tehran? No, there would be. There are also women outside the Tehran that are also choosing, choosing the emphasis. to emphasize, to emphasize, choosing no longer to wear the headscarves. In fact, a friend, a Iranian friend sent to me the other day that her, a friend of hers had called her up and said, for the first time ever, because women sometimes wear the headscarf, like, around their necks loosely in case they meet some morality police

and, you know, with some nervousness, they put it back on. So this friend of her says, I went out the other day in a short sleeve shirt, and I didn't even have a scarf around my neck. And I went out into the spring air, spring air, and I felt so liberated. And for women who aren't used to wearing that, you can't imagine just how liberating it feels. That opening up that you describe,

I did read also, Lisa, there have been reports of some stores, some shops shutting down to mark the anniversary of Masha. And that's something that I suppose we would, wouldn't have thought would have happened four years ago for fear of retribution? Yes, it's Iran, I mean, the situation we know because of, of course, the war that's, that doesn't seem to have an end in the Persian Gulf, just how unpredictable these times are. And Iranian security forces can be unpredictable.

When it comes to the law on hijab and chastity, it's still illegal for women to not to cover their hair, not to cover their body. So women could still be hauled in. That's exactly what happened to Masa Amini. So it could still, the authorities now are very much preoccupied with this, with this war and the deepening economic crisis in Iran and worrying about any another possible uprising. So they're not moving against the women for now. And as I said, a lot of the women say to us, they're not going to do it. But we also heard about, we visited one great street in Iran, where there's lots of cafes, women, people of all ages hanging out, and that those cafes had been shut down because of the kind of lifestyle that was being, that was the accusation. I'm told some of them have opened and some of them have not.

And perhaps today, people may be thinking about the anniversary and perhaps as a precaution. Some shops may decide to shut just, just in case, because it is an unpredictable landscape. And the last thing I was saying, Nula, of course, for the women of Iran, it's not. just about the hijab. They want other rights in their life and they often say to us, don't just focus on what we're wearing on our head. It's our lives that we want to change, not just what we wear.

Of course, just one symbol of what they were fighting for many others as well. Leastisette, our chief international correspondent, thank you so much for joining us. Earlier we heard from Rahabarini, human rights lawyer and one of the authors of the Amnesty International Report that has been

released just in the past few minutes. Now, A new film adaptation of Jane Austen's sense and sensibility will be released in cinemas later this month, on the 25th, I believe. The original novel was Austin's first, a classic coming-of-age story. The Dashwood Sisters forced to leave their family estate, Norland, after their father dies and moved to a cottage in rural Devonshire. More than 200 years since the first copy was sold,

the themes of love, money, family, women's independence are still up there as concerns for this current generation. The production stars Daisy Edgar Jones as the elder sister Eleanor, Esme Creed Miles, as the middle sister Marianne. And to tell us all about it, I'm joined by screenwriter Diana Reid. Good morning. Good morning. And the film's director, Georgia Oakley, good morning.

Good morning. I believe big night last night. Yes. Thank you both for getting up and coming in here is a bright eye and bushy tales. Did you have a good night, Diana? Yeah, I had a wonderful evening. Georgia? Yeah, it was surreal.

It was just not too far from here, actually. You were just down at Leicester Square. I saw some of the pictures coming in. I was lucky enough to go and see the film the other day. I know. I felt very privileged to be able to catch a screening, which was just gorgeous. Maybe, Diana, I should start.

For those that aren't totally familiar with sense and sensibility, I gave a little bit of it in the queue, but how would you sum it up? I mean, yeah, I think you summed it up beautifully, but yeah, it's a story of two sisters and how they, I guess I've always thought of it as a coming of age story, and it's about two sisters who, in order to end up with the right romantic partner, need to grow and learn from each other, and they need to acquire some of each other's qualities. And the story kicks off when the death of their father precipitates them being ejected from their family home

because their half-brother inherits the property and they're thrown into a very difficult world where they have to find love and stability. And survival really, I suppose, is what it's a story about for women of that time as well. Georgia, it's so beautiful to watch. And I think, you know, we often think of an Austin novel as somewhat, or even when we've seen adaptations on screen,

somewhat stayed lifestyle for women. But here we have women running, playing, some sort of tennis, maybe it was badminton, horse riding, getting rain soaked and muddy with dirty fingernails. What about those choices to leave aside the pristine? Yeah, I guess that was always what drew me to retelling the story was that I felt that particularly this Austin, because a lot of it takes place on the coast.

When they leave their family home, they moved to Devonshire, and it just felt like there was so much kind of elemental detail in the story itself in the book. and then in Diana's screenplay and I wanted to sort of question the fact that women at that time were always so presentable. You know, if they're at home with their families and their fathers just died and they're in mourning,

how do we know exactly how they dressed or how they wore their hair in those moments? I mean, there's a moment for the more formal world that we know and love of Austin in the film, but I think a lot of it I was going for something a little bit more loose. Yeah, how do you work with Georgia Diana from your screenplay on creating that sort of?

of energy. Yeah, so I think that was something that Georgia really brought when she came on board. And I think one thing that, I mean, a lot of it was the visual language that Georgia found for the film. But I suppose the elements that were scripted were often about making sure that the women felt really active and that the spaces they were in felt lived in. So rather than, you know, you almost never see them just sitting in a room drinking tea. They're always making something or doing.

something and especially when they moved to Devonshire and they have this huge reduction in their circumstances they're kind of you know they're doing chores a lot of the time they're tilling the land they're putting out the washing there and you see that change massive change from their previous

living existence when it comes to what they have to do for themselves or not but speaking of activity can we talk about the dancing scenes which are so sensual I would thinking as watching them. They could have been in a Beyonce video. Some of the moves. The choreographer, I looked

her up, Holly Blakey, one of the manny women that is on the credits for this particular film. I don't know. George, would you like to tell me a little bit? Yeah, about the filming and the beauty of those moves. Yeah, I think it goes back to this question of kind of historical accuracy and how much as a

filmmaker you're able to kind of play with that a little bit. And with the dancing, I work with Holly. There are two dance sequences in the film. And I was really excited for Holly to create two different sequences that were in dialogue with each other. So the first one is more kind of rough and ready countryside party. And then the next one is a more formal London ball. And both the dance sequences were built around steps that those characters would have known at the time. But then Holly was able to kind of imbue it with also slightly more of the emotional landscape of those characters and what they were going through and how they were feeling as well. So there is a slightly sort of hyper-real aspect to the dancing.

but yeah I think that was just a choice to sort of slightly move away again from everything that we expect to know as the sort of pristine world of the Regency dance. I didn't think people could be so physical while both are wearing gloves. But there you go. There is a lot of humour in this and I'm wondering how you decide to insert it and kind of work within that period as well. Well, I mean, the book is very funny. Jane Austen is famously a wit, and the books are genuinely laugh out loud funny. So I think for me it was just about isolating what was funny about particular characters and what made me laugh and then trying to make sure that that translated onto screen.

I think there's also that juxtaposition because we're watching this, you know, love affair blossom. Meanwhile, well, you've got that sister that a lot of us might have a younger sister. that is ruining the moment with her piano playing or a little bit of crying. Also, pleased to make your acquaintance, it reminded me so much my grandmother used to always introduce herself like that. She was born in 1897, so it was quite a while ago.

But Mr. Ferris did remind me of her as he introduced himself. But in that moment, I also feel there's yearning. And I saw the actor Frank Delane, who plays the Dastardly Willoughby, remarked at the premiere, that yearning is making a comeback. And I'd like your thoughts, Georgia and Diana,

on why you think that might be. Yes, I actually... If you believe this. I didn't know, I didn't know that yearning was making a comeback until someone mentioned it in a marketing meeting and it was big on the screen and I was like, wow. And now I've been, yeah, I've had my eyes open to the world of yearning and book talk, things that I was not familiar with before.

Well, now that's interesting you say that because you're the director and I felt the yearning coming across as I watched them leave Norland and you see Norland in the rearview mirror as they gallop away. That to me was like, you know, yearning for their previous lifestyle. Yes, of course. But that for me, it just is in the story. And I guess the fact that yearning's making a comeback and it's sort of on trend is not something that I was aware of.

But I've always been a fan of those kinds of stories that have, you know, it's just heartache, isn't it? What do you think, Dan, do you think it's a particular something that people are looking for at this moment? Yeah, I do. I do think that it's interesting that yearning discourse exists online because I also think the craving for it is like a function of our very online lives. I think that we, I think that everyone is very familiar with that feeling of being hyper-connected and you, yeah, you're seen by a lot of people, but you're understood by very few. And I think that's something that Austin really taps into,

especially with the romances. And I think people are craving stories that don't just show superficial attraction between people but show really deep emotional connection. And I think that yearning for someone and missing someone conveys an intensity of emotion that's more than just finding someone attractive. As they leave, they also have a little caged bird on their lap,

which to me, I mean, represented the sisters, Georgia. Yes, exactly. I wish we'd seen more of that bird, actually. Exactly. It came true. I think, I mean, to me, the story is about the fact that young women are set up still now, to expect certain things from their lives and to have some estimation of what the world is going to offer them.

but then there's an enormous gap between that and what they are actually given by life. And I think that's why her work is still so relevant today because young women are still negotiating with that gap in expectation. Can we take a moment to pay tribute to Fiona Shaw as Miss Jennings? I, like everyone else probably, I'm already a huge fan of hers. But she is hilarious. How much fun to write Diana and then see it brought to life by somebody like Fiona? Yeah, well, I mean, Mrs. Jennings was an amazing character to write.

I think you were asking about the comedy before. She's a great example of, I feel like Austin always arcs the satire in her novels and the characters who are initially ridiculous sometimes become less so. And then conversely, characters who are villainous, they become more and more ridiculous, almost as like a morality tale. And Mrs. Jennings is definitely one of those characters who, when she kind of storms into the plot and she's such a huge personality and even the sisters don't really take her seriously at first

and then she blossoms into this incredibly gentle, generous soul and by the end of the film, I think this woman who you were laughing out at the start is someone who you have such a genuine affection for. So, yeah, she was so much fun to write. And then having Fiona was just incredible. Like, yeah, one of my favorite memories of the whole production process was the read-through when Fiona,

first like sunk her teeth into that character and she just had the whole room in stitches. She's just such a gifted comic actor. She sat in the chair where Georgia is now and she's such a fantastic rock and tour and had us in stitches as well telling a story about her upbringing as well. There's a love story there. But what do you think, Georgia? Is it romantic love or the relationship between the sisters themselves, that sort of love? For me, the heart of the story is the love. The love of the story is the love between the two sisters and the story takes that shape, you know, that their romance is really the centre of this adaptation anyway. But I think also Austin understood that you could take a romance

plot and thread into it much more kind of subversive themes underneath that. And that was something that, you know, that is something that we still, novelists are still doing today. And that, I think, is why she's so successful. Yeah, it's incredible. There's more, I know, that is coming out a little later as well, isn't there, when it comes to Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice series written by Dolly Alderton, for example. It just seems to resonate with the various generations. I wanted to ask you something about nepo babies. You might have seen the other day.

The actor Catherine Zeta Jones called the term nepo baby horrific, referring to children of famous parents perceived to have achieved success of their parents back. I loved watching your actors started looking into some of them. Many of them are famous parents that are actors in the, or maybe in the entertainment industry. Esme Creed Miles, plays Marianne beautifully, is the daughter of the actress Samantha Morton and Charlie Creed Miles.

Frank Delane, who I was mentioning, plays Willoughby, is the son of actress Stephen Delane and Naomi Werner. And Mr Palmer is played by Elliot Sumner, whose parents are Sting and Trudy Stiler. Thoughts on the term, Nepo Baby, as it's bandied around? I mean, I personally, when I look at someone like it's me, I use the term a stallion bread for screen because she's just brimming with talent.

And, you know, I guess talent maybe is something that is hereditary. And I think perhaps with, I think perhaps with NEPO, the term NEPO baby people obviously resent a feeling of unfairness. and I guess hereditary gifts are unfair to, you know, but I think I'm just, we're so lucky to have people like that working. I think it's an interesting point you bring up there actually, Diana, because Georgia, it can be very difficult to make it, particularly your directing.

I mean, I was quite struck, as I mentioned previously, looking at the credits, just the amount of women that are in this film. But I was struck because it's very unusual. I mean, what would you like to see? happen in the industry for perhaps more young women to be able to take up positions that you and Diana have been able to. Yeah, I think it's such a big question that and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that yes, there are so many barriers to entry. If you haven't had that kind of, you know, the thing about NEPA babies is that you have an introduction for sure into a world that

you might not have necessarily been able to access and that is an advantage that other people don't have. But at the same time, I would say you do have, maybe you also shown the more realistic side of what the entertainment industry is, whereas if you haven't had that in the past, you might come at it with a rose-tinted glasses. But in terms of getting more women behind the camera, there's such a huge way to go. And I think it has a lot to do with the types of stories

that women want to tell some of the time and what we deem to be commercial and what we don't. And I think that's really relevant when talking about this story, because again, as I said, Austin understood that this was a commercial story, how to make this a commercial story, but how to thread in the things she wanted to say at the same time

and I think women have to do that a lot more than men in some ways because there is this kind of gap in what we say to be commercial. It's absolutely beautiful the film. I had a laugh, I had a cry, it was all dark so nobody could see, that was good. And I want to thank the screenwriter Diana Reid and the films director, Georgia Oakley.

And it does open on the 25th. I'm right about that. Am and I let me double check. Yes, in cinemas on the 25th of September. It's a great watch. Thanks so much for spending some time with us. Now, some of you getting in touch, talking about reconnecting with your heritage. We're going to be speaking to Rebecca Kwong, who has written Taipei story in just a few minutes.

Let me see. On reconnecting with my mother's Irish heritage and as a half Irish half English last, when my Yorkshire father was dying, my mum's Irish sisters descended upon us and provided the most incredible round-the-clock support and vigil to us in my father's last days. They worked according to an invisible and known ritual. helping me to speak with my dad, though I was scared of losing him. And then there was crying, howling and singing. I didn't realize how Irish this was.

This led me in later life to research and learn how to practice Keening and write about it in my work indeed. Queenie, the Irish for crying. Growing businesses deal with the same problem. Too many tools, too much back and forth and not enough time. Odu helps bring it all together. It's an all-in-one business management platform, fully integrated from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing,

so your team can spend less time chasing information and focus on growth. Whether you're in retail, manufacturing or service, Odu gives you one place to manage your business. Visit Odo.com to book a demo. It's ODbbolo.com. Get more with BBC podcasts, wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favourite shows, like evil genius, good bad billionaire, and you're dead to me,

with a subscription to Be Be Bebsoneration to Beard. BBC Podcasts Premium on Apple Podcasts. You can also enjoy a range of our podcasts ad-free with an Amazon music subscription. Now, let me turn to the elite rock climber, Sean Acoxie, who has become the first woman to complete the UK's hardest deep-water solo climb. Shawna scaled the Olympiad, a cliff route, hanging over the sea in Pembrokeshire. Deep water solo climbing involves scaling coastal routes without ropes or harness, falling into the sea if you come off.

Shawna is Britain's most successful ever competitive climber in the UK's first ever bouldering world champion. She competed at the 2021 Olympics, but this sort of climbing is new to her. Shauna Coxie joins me now. Congratulations, Shawna. Welcome to Women's Hour. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Well, you know, I did have a look at the pictures and the videos about what this is all about, but I think you need to explain to our listeners. Up at a cliff edge, hanging over the sea at a 45 degree angle. Tell us more. Yeah, you did a great job there. and it sounded a lot scarier when you were saying it out loud than it felt at the time. But, yeah, deep water soloing is kind of in the name,

soloing being climbing without rope, it's just you in the wall, and, yeah, deep water above the ocean. So it's not something I have much experience doing, but it was an incredible experience. So why did you, so bouldering was the sort of climbing you were used to. Maybe you want to describe that briefly so people are aware? Sure, yeah. So there's multiple different types and disciplines of climbing. I spent many years as a competitive climber on the World Cup circuit doing bouldering, which is climbing not too high above mats. And it's often quite gymnastic and quite expressive. I then went to the Tokyo Olympics where we had to do multiple different disciplines there. But I've recently kind of transitioned into being a rock climber and started to explore different avenues in rock climbing. my main discipline being bouldering, so still climbing not too high above mats.

But when a friend of mine came and proposed an idea to prime, the hardest deep water solo in the UK, my initial reaction was absolutely not. No way, that sounds terrifying. What are you one about? Why would I want to do that? And then they showed me some pictures of it. And I immediately understood why they proposed the idea. and I thought, you know, I've got a young daughter who's often trying out new things and I'm encouraging her and it seemed very insincere of me to not live by that too.

So you gave it a go. The pictures are quite something. But you do it as you mentioned solo without a rope or a harness. I mean, what's going through your mind? You have the sea below you. I'm sure you must need to know how to fall into the sea, for example, when you're up that high so you don't hurt yourself. I'm thinking, I'm thinking tides, I'm thinking winds. The logistics are incredibly complicated. The route itself is difficult. So you need to abseil into the base of the climb. Well, actually you up sail to the side of the climb and then you kind of swing across a rope into a small cave to begin the climb. I tried it on a rope on one day, which requires you set up gear and anchors

and then you're swinging around on ropes. It's incredibly difficult to even try the movements. So, yeah, I was really fortunate to have such a good team. The first ascensionist, Neil Gresham, was there to support me on it. Red Bull are making a film about it, which is really cool to have their support to and then an amazing production crew. But, yeah, it felt quite a daunting task.

But what if you fall? Well, yeah, you land in the sea. So I did fall once and only once. I expected to be doing a lot more falls than just that one. And I was really surprised, actually, because I imagined I'd be terrified whilst climbing. But in actual fact, I was able to really click that switch and just fully immerse in the flow state of being present on the wall,

which is something that I don't find very easily these days, especially since becoming a mum. But yeah, there's not really much room for distraction when you're hanging above the sea. But yeah, just you've got to hope you don't hit the bottom, I guess, when you do fall off. Yes, I was thinking they must have what it is called, I suppose, deep water solo climbing. So perhaps you are going places that are quite deep. But you were the first woman to successfully climb, complete this climb, the Olympiad, as I mentioned. You're also the fastest climber to complete.

How long did it take? So yeah, I tried it on one day, I tried some of the movements, and then I did it on my second attempt from the start, which was a surprise, I think, definitely to myself and everyone involved. And mostly because of the logistics being such a nightmare, and that's the tide conditions, the humidity, the temperature, the wind direction, and also me being a total novice in the deep water solo world. Yeah, it was very unexpected for it to happen so quickly. Well, congratulations to you for doing that. You know, you mentioned that you have a daughter and you mention also how many variables there are when it comes to completing a challenge like this, for example.

How do you find it trying to, I suppose, because you need to have like, as you've mentioned, like a clear mind, complete focus in the flow. It's something that I appreciate so much more, I think, since becoming a parent, is being so content and immersed in the flow state. It's something that I've always looked and tried to find when competing in the past and since becoming a professional rock climber too. But, yeah, there's a real gift now that comes with being truly present. And I think that that only comes with knowing my daughter is incredibly well looked after by whoever she's worthy, my husband, my family or friends. And it's something I see within her too.

And I think that it's a real privilege to be able to show her that that is something that we can look for and that we can achieve. And that, you know, she gets to see me and her father too, like, seeking our passion. And I think, you know, that's what we all want to give our kids, right, is passion and joy. Something that they can look for in life. Yeah, and to take a few risks now and then as well. Now, I saw you posted on Instagram. This was a video of you doing, I mean, Annie pull-up is impressive in my book, but you were doing them while holding your daughter on your lap.

He's not a tiny baby either, I should say. I don't know what age she was, but I could just see from behind, whatever. She's definitely a few years old. You say you're making sure she knows what a real sportswoman looks like when you had this post. We were talking about Sydney, Sweeney, yesterday. The Hollywood actor who had done a sports ad came under a lot of backlash really due to it as she was naked in these pictures with sporting props. Thoughts? Yeah, that post, my daughter's four and a half, by the way.

So yeah, it's definitely getting trickier as the years go on. But that being said, it's getting tricky to kind of showcase a world that I want her to grow up in. And all we can do is do our best to kind of help control what they see somewhat, but that's obviously not going to be possible forever. I think for me it's really important that she sees what real people look like. And I'd love for her to grow up in a world where her appearance isn't the first thing she's judged by. but I'm not naive enough to think that that's going to happen. And I think that as parents, it's our job to educate our children to understand where their values are

and to really help them understand their self-worth. And ultimately that's my goal. And I think there's a whole bigger discussion to be had around the advert and what it stands for. I don't think it's just about the photos. I think it's about much more than that. We'd meet a lot longer than we have to discuss it. ultimately raising a daughter really makes me look at the world differently.

And I want to show her what women are capable of. And hopefully I'm able to do that. And it really feels like she's showing me just as much as I am. And, you know, I think protecting that innocence and vulnerability and allowing children to express themselves and be them for as long as we possibly can, is incredible. Well, what a role model. It is, Shauna Coxie,

the first woman to complete the UK's hardest Deepwater solo climb, scaling the Olympiad. Thanks so much for speaking to us. And again, congratulations, Shawna. Thank you. 844. Thank you for if you'd like to get in touch. Now, many listeners will know my next guest, Rebecca F. Kwong, from the bestselling,

the critically acclaimed novel, Yellowface. Well, in her latest novel, Taipei story, we follow Lily, a Yale student who leaves the states, for an intensive summer language course in the capital of Taiwan. There, Lily navigates a confusing world of translation and miscommunication as she strives to perfect

her, protect and perfect her Mandarin Chinese. It's the language of her parents and of her grandparents. There is food, language, identity, grief and humor, all part of this story. Rebecca joins me from Edinburgh. She's in our studio up there. Good to have you with us, Rebecca.

Good morning. Thanks for having me. Now, I loved your book, by the way. Loved it. Love Taipei as well. I was lucky enough to be sent there for work a couple of years ago and I ate my way through it as well. Now, it says on your book cover that Lily Chen arrives in Taipei hungry. And I know you had your own experience on a summer language course in Taipei back in 2023 as part of the inspiration for this book. but what sort of hunger did you feel or does Lily feel as she arrives in the city? Well, there's the obvious fact that food in Taipei is just absolutely incredible. There's everything from snacks at night markets to conveyor about sushi to the very famous Taiwanese beef noodle soup.

And I'm vegan, so I was actually able to have this version made with mushrooms at the base of a mountain that I think about every day. But metaphorically, what she's really hungry for is some kind of reconnection to her culture, her heritage, her extended family, who she's really grown up not knowing. And I think a lot of people in diaspora communities feel this way, not just the Chinese diaspora, anybody who doesn't speak their parents' mother tongue well or who can't communicate with their grandparents. I think everybody has this fantasy where,

if they could only go back, if they could only immerse themselves in the language, if they could just contort their tongues into the shapes that they are out of practice making, they could be welcomed back into the fold and received all the stories and just the family context that they feel like has been a missing chunk of themselves. Yeah, and it often comes at a later stage. I mean, with Lily, she's young in her 20s. Sometimes people are older and some of those people have already passed or it's too late to get those stories. and I think there's definitely part of Lily there that goes through that.

How much of Lily is you, would you say, Rebecca? So this book is very much not autobiographical. Lily's reactions to things, the choices she makes. They're not the choices I would have made. Because it is based on something personal that happened to me. I was studying abroad in Taipei three years ago when my Gong Gong passed away. And I wrote the novel to explore the... the grief and also guilt and shame I had about being so anxious about my accent and my poor grammar

and vocabulary in Chinese that I didn't make more of the opportunities we had to reconnect. So that is very shared between me and Lily. But like all good novelists, I'm always thinking about how do you make things 10 times worse? And I thought these feelings would have hit so much harder if I were 19 instead of 27. I would have been so much more confused and isolated and desperate to hold on to anything that I felt prove something about my own identity. And your Gong Gong is your grandfather who was in mainland China? Yeah, that's right.

Which was the case with Lily. She's in Taiwan, not able to get a visa to go to China. But Taiwan is such an interesting place because it has a complication to say the least relationship with China, but of course, has been a place that has been colonized many times as well. Parts of it as you walk through, you could feel perhaps that you're in the back streets of Japan. Other times it has Americans that are coming to visit. I'm just wondering what struck you, because you called the book Taipei story. What was it about the city that struck you? For me, it was like the energy was so pulsating. I wanted to set the novel in Taipei.

because I wanted to complicate the idea that a homecoming is even possible or that the narratives that Lily has always believed about what is essentially culturally Chinese, what it would take to become more Chinese herself. I wanted to subvert those. So the case of studying Mandarin in Taipei in order to discover your own essential Chineseness is a proposal that is fraught with contradictions. Mandarin as a language was not even the Dutch. dominant language in Taiwan until the middle of the 20th century.

So quite recently, after the nationalists, when they lost the Chinese Civil War, they came to Taiwan and sort of imposed the use of Mandarin through quite violent and coercive means. And still today, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education has scholarships for foreign students to come and study Mandarin there as part of a soft power diplomacy push, which is fine. A lot of countries use language of soft power in this way. But that all goes to show that the deep belongings that we have about connection and identity, there are always influence in ways we don't even fully understand by state interests and national mythologies and narratives.

And also, I suppose, family history as well. It's interesting. We were talking about yearning a little bit earlier. We were talking about the film Sense and Sensibility. And I do feel there are some themes of yearning in your book as well, of like connecting or wanting to connect with the idea. with their families, maybe larger identity. There are many relationships in the book.

One is about Lily moving into a small apartment with another girl on the course, Anna, and their friendship can be tumultuous at times. What informed that prickly female friendship of two young women living in such close proximity? Well, to begin with, I wanted to write a novel that didn't have an antagonist, so I didn't want any force of evil or anybody

who was, you know, irredeemably awful. But from Lily's perspective, her roommate Anna is like the spawn of Satan because they are stuck together for two months in this tiny crammed apartment and it's so hot. And all Lily can think about is ways in which Anna is violating her personal space. When she eats these oily crackers, she drags her fingers along the walls and the tables and leaves streaks everywhere. She doesn't shower before she gets into bed, so she is leaving stains of sunscreen and bug spray and sweat.

She leaves her stinky shoes indoors. She's getting the bathroom dirty. And from Anna's perspective, Lily is probably very cold and rude and abrupt, but Lily doesn't see this. So I was really interested in how when you're a teenage girl, all the stakes become inflated, and you can sometimes take those sort of petty interpersonal disputes and blow them up apocalyptic proportions. But if you zoom out, you really just see two quite sympathetic and also at times annoying undergraduates struggling to get along with each other. Because they don't have the money to stay anywhere nicer. So they're in this cramped apartment.

You describe it all so beautifully. But you know, there was a word that kind of came up to me, I think, when I was thinking about Lily, how she feels about herself. And that word was inadequate because she's trying to be the good girl. She's trying to be the diligent daughter. She has a mother who she also has a complicated relationship with. I love that line. It was the mother's love. Her mother's love was expressed as worrying. Tell me a little bit about the diligent daughter

because there are some that she kind of attaches to her role as a Chinese daughter as trying to do right by everyone. So Lily comes from a very difficult family background. And I handled this with a light touch because it's coming from a place of emotional truth for me. And I think a lot of people in that community, her family is very dysfunctional. There is a lot of mental illness that they don't have the vocabulary for or the tools to deal with. And Lily has always felt that she needs to compensate for her older sister who is really struggling. And so all of those expectations, the demand to be normal, to perform, to be the one who's okay,

Lily has taken all of that on herself because her mother came out and said to her at one point, it's a good thing you're so good at school. Otherwise, your father would have killed himself, which is a horrible thing for you to hear when you're 12. It's something my mother said to me. And I think that I'm still sitting with the weight of that impact. but I also wanted to explore the relationship between Lily and her mother and how she starts to see where her mother's coming from because she learns later on in the book that her mother was actually sent to California as a replacement to live with her aunt because her aunt after surviving the Cambodian genocide, fleeing to refugee camp in Thailand, and coming over to California, she lost her twin sons during the genocide and Lily's grandkids. father. Her mother's father said, well, if you have no children, I have three daughters, so you can have one. So her mother also knows what it's like to always be held up to a standard that you can't

reach. Yeah. And I'm so sorry that you had that, that you talk about that reflection in your own life when it comes to some of those pressures put upon you as a child. You know, it's even, because I know we were talking about your grandfather and grief, but I thought that Chinese saying, because there's so much about language in it, which is saying that the family not having the language to express what they wanted to express. But I'm thinking of that phrase that there was that you say when somebody has died,

please restrain your grief, which I think could be used in almost so many scenarios, not just when somebody has died, or that is what is expressed in the book. Yeah, I think Lily really struggles with this because she grew up in the US. She's used to very American. expressions of emotion and she thinks grief looks like screaming and crying and wailing and when she goes and

sees her mother at the airport when she's there for layover before the funeral her mother she just seems sort of hollow and washed out and empty and Lily starts crying when they're having breakfast together and her mother says stop crying um you know it's not good for you to cry so much and Lily asks her but didn't you cry and her mother says well I did a bit but now I'm done crying um because you just have to move on. So I don't know if this is a cultural thing so much as an idiosyncratic family thing. I think it can be sometimes

with some traditional family structures speaking as an Irish person which I'm crying earlier as well. Fabulous book. Thank you so much for writing it and for speaking to us. Rebecca F. Kuang, her book is Taipei Story.

Total page Turner. I will say the BBC Action Line has been affected by some of the issues we've been speaking about. There are links to help and support on that. Do join us again. Dame Miros-Ail. We'll be here with Anita. I'm going to be tuning in for that conversation about her first memoir, Vigil Ante, which is out this month. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Join us again next time. 25 years on from the deadliest terror attack in history, why are thousands of grieving families still fighting for answers?

In early 2000, two young Saudis arrived in San Diego. They'd never been to America, spoke almost no English, and had no idea how to open a bank account or rent a flat. Within weeks, they'd done all of it. Twenty months later, they hijacked a plane and crashed it into the Pentagon. Jane McMullen investigates the hidden story of a man who helped two of the hijackers and reveals a story that the U.S. and Saudi governments have fought to keep secret. From Radio 4, this is intrigue, a 9-11 story. Listen first on BBC Sounds. BBC Podcasts, wherever you listen. Be the first to listen to your favorite shows, like Evil Genius, Good, Bad Billionaire,

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