Woman's Hour - 27/03/2026

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

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

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. For years, I've sounded like a broken record. I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure. The story has always been, no.

I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story. Definitely just a story. From CBC's personally, this is creation myth. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, I'm Nula McGovern and you're listening to The Woman's Hour podcast. And while you're here, I wanted to let you know that the Woman's Hour Guide to Life is back. You might have listened to some of the episodes from the first series, including ambition without burnout, or turning aging into your superpower. Well, we've got six new episodes

for you over the coming weeks that will give you practical tips on issues like self-promotion without feeling awkward, caring for aging parents, navigating infertility with family and friends, and also how to love your face, whatever your age. I'm really excited about this series of the Woman's Hour Guide to Life, so I really hope you'll join us. You will find the episodes in the Women's Hour podcast feed on Sundays. It's only on BBC Sounds. But now, back to today's Woman's Hour with Anita Rani. Good morning and welcome to the program. Now, during the Franco regime in Spain, thousands of women who were said to have deviated from what was described at the time as the supposed norms of female behaviour by the Board for the Protection of Women were locked

away. While now the Spanish government have officially pardoned 53 women but does saying sorry go far enough and why did it happen in the first place we'll be finding out. Polly Amory or an open relationship. Are you in one? Have you considered one? Have you

been in one? It seems to be having a cultural moment so we'll be discussing the options and how it works. And who's watched The Pit? The critically acclaimed HBO Max medical drama that from today you'll be able to binge watch. Well, I'll be joined by Catherine Lanassa, who plays big-hearted, straight-talking nurse, Dana Evans.

Catherine won her first Emmy for the role last year. But about a year before she got the role, she was in quite a dark place with a breast cancer diagnosis and had been unemployed for a while. But things turned around, and I cannot wait to ask her all about it. But this morning, I'd like to hear from you about when things have turned around in your own life. When you thought you should give up and then something turns a corner. Did you get the job? Did you travel the world?

Find love, get pregnant, find a new career or a new way of living. I remember my dad, Bal, saying in the first episode of Race Across the World, I never thought it would ever happen to me. And then it did. And he had an amazing adventure at the age of 69. So how about you? When have things turned a corner in your life?

Tell me all about it in the usual way. You can text the program. 84844 is the number to text. You can WhatsApp me on 0300-100-444 or email the program by going to our website. But the text number once again, 84844. I cannot wait to read your stories. But first, a young woman in the US has successfully sued Meta, the company behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp and Google owner of YouTube

over her childhood addiction to social media. In an unprecedented case, a jury in Los Angeles found that the companies intentionally designed addictive platforms that harmed the 20-year-old's mental health. After a six-week trial, the woman who's known as Kaylee, has been awarded $6 million, that's $4.5 million in damages, something which could have implications for hundreds of similar cases in the US courts. Both tech companies say they disagree with the verdict and will appeal. To discuss this, I'm joined now by BBC tech reporter Shona McAllum. Morning Shona. Morning. So this is a first of its kind case to make it to trial.

So tell us more about the verdict. Let's find out what the jury decided before we get into the intricacies of it. Absolutely. And this case was all focused on the one plaintiff known as Kaylee. Juryers concluded that those design choices such as infinite scrolling and the algorithm recommendations were a substantial factor in causing her harm. She was awarded that $6 million US dollars in damages, and including punitive damages,

after the jury found that the company's meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram and Google that owns YouTube, had acted with malice and had disregarded the risks in this case. And what about Kaylee, the woman at the center of this case? What did she say in her testimony? Yes, so Kaylee is now. 20. She lives in California, but throughout the trial, she was anonymous and she didn't appear on camera and that privacy was really crucial. She began using YouTube at the age of six and Instagram at the age of nine, despite the age restrictions that are in place on the app. She had a host of mental health issues, including anxiety, depression and body issues. And over the last few weeks, she's given some really emotional testimony about how social media began to be, an escape, but also a trap.

She used it to cope with bullying and said it gradually took over her life. She said it really affected herself worth. She spoke about withdrawing from family. She lost interest in day-to-day hobbies. She was really struggling socially. And really what we got was a picture of a child who had become so isolated,

spending hours and hours online. And in fact, one day she spent 16 hours on Instagram alone. Wow. So what do we know about Kaylee and how did she get to this stage? Give us a bit of background. Yes, so she had just become fixated on her appearance as she used the social media more and more. She was posting hundreds of photos.

She was relying heavily on those beauty filters, which I'm sure you've seen online. They changed how she looked and she became addicted to that. She described constantly comparing herself to other people. She was feeling worse and worse. the more time she spent online and she told the court that she had experienced thoughts of self-harm

and linked them to her deteriorating mental health. There was a complex case. This was not a straightforward person but despite all of the mental health issues that Kaylee had, the jurors still found that the social media pays a role in contributing to that. What did her lawyers say that?

Well, yes, her lawyers said, said that her prolonged use of social media led to that anxiety, that depression and that body dysmorphia. And they were really strong in court. And of course, after were jubilated at the fact that, you know, this had been a verdict, not just for Kaylee, they said, but for the millions of other teenagers, of a generation of other teenagers experiencing similar things. And what about Meta and Google? Google. Well, Meta said it respectfully disagrees with the verdict. And of course, it plans to appeal

there would be no surprise there. They argued that mental health issues are very complex and they said that they could not be attributed to a single platform. Google said it would appeal. They maintained the whole way through this case that YouTube is not a social network and it's responsibly built. During the trial, both companies disputed really their products

were addictive and the cause of Kaylee's harm saying that this was much more complicated. We did see the CEO of Facebook and Instagram Mark Zuckerberg in court during this trial as well, which is unusual. We have heard him in Congress, but not at any of these cases. And he said, you know, of course, the social network did their best to help parents. They had already put some restrictions on, for example, under 13s aren't supposed to be on these platforms. But of course, we know children circumnavigate restrictions all the time.

It's such a landmark case. I wonder what the implications are. I understand there's lots more cases working their way through the US courts. Oh, yes, that's right. I mean, there's apparently thousands of cases now waiting in the wings. And now that we've had this verdict, you can see there might be even more cases coming. I think it validates really this new legal argument

that social media platforms can cause this injury through their design. I mean, it's been compared to those early cases against tobacco companies. where products were argued that, you know, they were deliberately addictive. And we know how the tobacco situation played out. You know, there are already thousands, I think, of similar lawsuits underway. And I think this verdict really just strengthens those cases. And it will increase the pressure on the tech companies now as well to, you know, perhaps make changes as to how their platforms are built. You know, that the money is a drop in the ocean, the $6 million for these tech companies.

but it's the changes that they might have to make to the products, which I think will also be interesting. And what about here in the UK? Do you know of any cases being planned or attempted by families? Yes, in fact, one of the families went across to the US to support this case. And there are cases here in the UK that are arguing a similar thing. But I think the main thing here in the UK is this kind of consultation on banning social media. you know you've heard about Australia.

They've banned it for under 16s. And in the House of Lords, they voted against the government to make an amendment to a bill to ban social media. But I think that that might come around again. There's a consultation and a trial underway with families across the UK, which is looking at different aspects

of social media. So some families are trying a blanket ban. Other families are trying a digital detox. That's ongoing for the next six weeks. And the government will be looking at the results and the testimony of families and seeing if that has an impact on teens' mental health. And I think this case just kind of adds to, I think the pressure really that governments are under. You know, parents up and down the country listening to this will be thinking,

well, you know, what are the dangers? You know, can we trust these social media platforms? You know, how much time should my child be spending online? And I think it's very complex. And I think this case just kind of adds to, a growing body of evidence really that something does need to change. Well, they might be looking at their own children

and thinking, I know about teenage addiction to social media because I'm living with a teenager who might well have it. As the BBC tech reporter show now, I wonder what you think the social media, what the future for tech companies is, if it has to make changes to address the potential addictive nature of social media? I mean, I think it would just make the experience

on social media completely different. I mean, we looked in this case at the various different things. You'll probably leave a few familiar. Push notifications, they pop up on your phone, they reel you back in, they get you to check the app, and then suddenly you're on it again. Video auto play, so you log on, the content starts playing and you haven't even clicked anything.

The algorithm, of course, recommending more and more content that you like, can send you down a rabbit hole. You know, I know myself, you know, suddenly you think, oh, where did the last 20 minutes? go and this infinite scrolling, the fact that when you log onto social media, there is no end point, you can keep going and going and going. And in Kaylee's case, in this case, we saw that she said she was on Instagram for up to 16 hours a day. There was nothing to stop her doing that. So if those things have to go, then I think that makes social media completely different. It

would look and feel very different. And, you know, we may even then begin to see things like warning labels, restrictions, bans, you know, even tech companies. being asked to do things like fund rehab for mental health programs in the same way that we saw tobacco companies shift and transform in the 2000. So I think there's a lot that can change in the coming years. And I definitely do think that with a case like this, we might begin to see that domino effect and those changes coming to fruition. Yeah, absolutely.

And surely, Shona, never have your notifications on. No, turn them off at all times. Keep them switched off. Thank you so much for that. Fascinating stuff. Shona McAllen, BBC Tech Reporter for joining us this morning. And if you've been affected by anything you've heard, you can find support links on the BBC's Action Line website. And I must say that we, Google, have said on this, we disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal. This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site.

And Meta, who owned Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp say we respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options. 84844 is the text number. Now, Polly Amory, or Open Marriage, is seemingly having a bit of a pop culture moment. The feminist writer Lindy West's second memoir, it's called Adult Braces, has sparked a conversation online, as in it Lindy enters a polyamorous relationship,

seemingly at the behest of her husband after he says their marriage is contingent on her agreeing to this. In the blockbuster novel of 2024, all fours, the perimenopausal protagonist, opens her marriage, following a period of self-discovery. And there's Lily Allen's latest album, West End Girl, in which her lyrics chronicle a marital breakdown

and an even reluctant open relationship. Well, these examples follow a stream of books and TV series featuring polyamorous relationships. There are even polyamorous dating apps available, which allow users to specifically filter for non-monogamous relationship styles. Well, I'm joined now to discuss this by the author Molly Rodin Winter,

who's written the book, More, a memoir of open marriage, based on her own experience, and Sarah Dittam, a writer for The Times and unheard, who's written on the subject. Welcome to both of you. Molly, I'm going to come to you first. What's your current situation? Tell us more. So you're married and polyamorous. Yes, I'm married and polyamorous. I think it gives me a little street cred that we've now been married for 26 years and open for the last 18 years. I also felt like I was in a unique position to write about my situation because my parents have an open marriage. And I didn't know about that as a child. I found out after I was married.

But I think it felt important to me to lend a little gravitas to it as a lifestyle because I think it can sometimes seem as though it's very much on the fringes as opposed to just people. people next door. So many questions. I'm going to come back to you, but before we do, let's bring Sarah in. Because Sarah, in one of your pieces, because you have written about this, you call it the cult of non-monogamy. What do you mean? Did I?

Well, yes, I do think there is, I think, as with any kind of lifestyle, any kind of special interest, there's a tendency for a kind of cult-like behaviours to grow around it. and for sets of expectations to solidify and for people to become very kind of policing about right and wrong ways to do it. One of the things I really appreciated about Molly's memoir is that she writes a lot about making mistakes and kind of figuring things out between her and her husband

sort of on their own terms. But there is a, and I think you see this in the Lindy West story quite strongly actually, this idea that in order to be especially a good progressive person, you have to embrace the ideals of polyamory or of non-monogamy. And that comes with a whole sort of expectations that can often weigh really heavily on a less enthusiastic partner who might be doing it to sort of please the other half of the relationship and it's kind of contorting themselves into uncomfortable situations because they're ultimately, you know, afraid of being left on their own.

Do you, I mean, we talk, I mean, it is woman sound. We do talk about these things in sort of different ways, but I mean, it might be a cliche, but do you think this is often the case that it's the husband, Sarah, wants to open up the relationship? Is that what you're getting at? Well, there is a cliche, which, alas, if you spend a lot of time reading problem pages or reading posts on relationship boards on sites, like, for example, Reddit, There is this cliche of the man who thinks there's a kind of, the man in a heterosexual marriage who thinks there's a sort of sexual smorgasbord out there that he's been denied somehow.

He persuades his wife to open their relationship. They're both on the dating apps. And six months later, she has had a dozen hookups and he has not been able to make a single coffee date. Because that is the basis of, you know, that is the basic rules of the sexual economy, is the men are more willing to take risks. So if women put themselves out there, they are going to have many, many more offers than they're really even able to respond to. Whereas when men put themselves out there, they often find that they are doing all the running. It's very hard work to meet people.

And there is, you know, there's quite a pleasing irony sometimes in reading these stories of men who thought they were going to have all the incredible sex in the world, realizing that they're actually just going to watch their wife go on fun dates without them. So many things have opened up here. So if you would like to share your thoughts and opinions and experiences, then get in touch 84844. But Molly, back to you. You actually, you and your husband have been together, as you mentioned, 26 years. 18 of those have been open. Tell us more.

How did this idea come about? Whose idea was it? Well, that's partly why I needed to write a book because it was complicated. And some people will read my book and say it was my husband. And it's interesting because I think it's a narrative that appeals to people. to say that the husband is forcing the wife into it. I actually met someone first and I was interested in them, but my husband had told me before we got married that if I wanted to sleep with someone else,

that was all right with him as long as I told him. And so I think one really interesting thing about non-monogamy is that we find it, we make it such a kind of deviant choice when in actuality it's really about honest communication. People cheat on each other in a monogamous relationship all the time. Some estimates are more than 50% of monogamous relationships involve infidelity. And so it's always kind of fascinating to me how demonized sometimes non-monogamy gets because it puts honest communication at the center. And sometimes, you know, we don't see all the dirty laundry aired all the time in monogamous relationships.

And, you know, there was time. times when I was interested in closing the marriage and we went to marriage counseling. But, you know, 18 years later, I'm quite happily polyamorous and it's not under duress. Oh, more. More. We need to understand more. When you say you wanted to close the marriage, tell us what happened. Yeah, well, there were times when early on when I broke up with someone. My husband did not have the experience that Sarah's describing. He's always, he's a really good guy. He's a really fun, wonderful person. And so when women date him, they want to keep dating him.

So he's had very few people break up with him. I, on the other hand, dating men early on sometimes had relationships that went south that were making me unhappy. And so there were times when I wasn't dating anyone and my husband was dating people and then I wanted to close the marriage. But we worked through it to the point that, you know, we both really want to give each other freedom. And we wanted to open ourselves up to other loving relationships. So at this point now, I have one relationship that's been for five years and one for one year. And I'm very happy in our, in our relationship and our structure. Molly, can I ask you some really basic questions that I'm sure people have asked you loads? Sure, sure. So I've got a list. One word. First of all,

jealousy. How do you deal with jealousy? Jealousy is a tough one. And my feeling about it is that it really masks some things that are going on inside yourself. And so if you're feeling insecure, you're going to be jealous. The beautiful part about non-monogamy is, or ethical non-monogamy, is that you talk about it and you discuss it. And I have done so much growing because of the conversations and the discussions we've had around jealousy. What do you mean ethical non-monogamy? Ethical non-monogamy is maybe it's just a buzzword in the States, but it's another way of talking about open marriage. So as opposed to unethical non-monogamy where you're cheating or you're not being honest with your partners, the idea of ethical non-monogamy is that there's honest

communication at the base. And I did not always practice that. I'm very honest about that in the book. I was not always ethical in my practice, but much more so now. Oh, interesting. When I thought of unethical, I thought maybe that it was sort of one person pushing the agenda and the other person feeling that they had to go along with it. I mean, that would be a form of unethical non-monogamy too, I guess. Yeah, I haven't actually experienced that in any of the relationships I've had. I've always had seen two people who are both interested in it. So I don't know about the scenario that Sarah is describing from personal experience. Sarah, I'm going to come back to you. I've just got a couple more questions. What happens if you fall in love? That's, now that's the only way I'm going to be in a relationship with someone is to be in love. And I think it's another interesting thing. thing that we think that love is so finite. If we were to say you can only have one child because

it's impossible to love a second child, the world would be up in arms. But we say that about partners as if romantic love is somehow different. So in my experience, love begets love and I love all of, you know, all three of my partners. And it's very enriching to life. Next question. Admin. How do you deal. I know women are very capable of doing many things, but just the admin of it all. When do you see them? How do you see them? Yeah, it's a lot simpler now that my children are grown. When they were younger, I just didn't sleep much. But I was also, I like to describe myself as a walking migraine before we opened our marriage. So something had to change. I needed some additional freedom and ways to explore my own identity, which can sometimes be difficult in a marriage with young children.

You see, I think there's lots of women who could relate to that sentence right there. 844-844. Sarah, it's hardly a new thing, is it? Let's talk about the 70s. Well, right, there is a very extremely long tradition of people experimenting with, you know, quote-unquote, non-traditional relationship structures. And even before the sexual revolution, there was, you know, you would find in various social classes, is, you know, widespread acceptance of men having mistresses or men like paying for sex outside of a relationship in certain situations. So there is, you know, it's not as if we are inventing this

idea of the non-monogamous marriage wholesale from raw cloth. And in lots of ways, when you kind of look at some of the less successful versions of non-monogamy that are out there, which would include Lindy West's book, which is actually in some ways quite an upsetting book in some ways I found. You just kind of, you want to shake these people and say, like, can't you just go and read Marilyn French? Can't you just go and read some John Updike? Like, we have done this. We've covered why these things are very difficult for people. You don't have to put yourself through this and learn it all from first principles again. But at the same time, the reason that people are constantly drawn back to these possibilities is the sort of stuff that Molly was just talking about.

Monogamous marriage is, you know, it's making a lifelong commitment to have one romantic, one financial, one domestic and one sexual relationship or with the same person. It can be pretty hard for a lot of people. And I think there is an understandable attraction to the idea that you could, you know, media, that or that you can give yourself space to explore other relationships or other ways of like knowing yourself that are outside of that one main relationship. So yeah, it's not new, but then humans are always going to be humans. So why wouldn't we keep going back to the same ideas?

What's the reaction when people read your book? Well, some people are very upset and think, you know, why would you keep going? You know, someone, you know, tried to count the number of times I cried in the book or something like that. And to that I say, the reason I kept going and the reason I keep going is that I have found this to be a path for me to self-discovery in a way that I never could have imagined. And I think it's, you know, Sarah was talking about how why would you, why would you do something hard is kind of what people are asking. But why do people run marathons? Why do people go to medical school? People make choices to do hard things. And in my experience, relationships are the

best way for me to learn about life and to learn about love and to learn about myself. And it's, you know, because it was hard in the beginning, that shows me, I did a lot of hard work. Well, I want to know a bit more about the rules between you and your husband. And what about things around sexual health? Like how do you make sure that you are protected and safe? Sure. You know, and again, there's, you know, people have different levels of risk tolerance, too. Some people won't ride the subway because they don't think, or some people won't drive in a car or get an airplane. So you have to have a certain amount of risk, you know, tolerance. Our rules at the beginning were all designed to prevent falling in love with someone else, as you said.

You know, we didn't want any intimacy. No dates with someone you worked with. We still do that. But, you know, no two dates in one week, no sleepovers, all so that we wouldn't fall in love. But our current rule is just to support these. other in whatever comes up. So we give each other pretty wide freedom with the understanding that our commitment is to one another ultimately. And so if something is difficult for me emotionally, my husband has to talk about it. Sexual health-wise, yeah, we get we get tested for

STDs. I have had the same two partners, as I said, for a long time. You know, I know people who have, you know, more rigid rules than we do. I've never gotten an STI and all my 18 years of being in an open relationship. So I think I must be doing something right in terms of safety. And I wonder what the marriage gives you then, you know, that sort of that aspect of the relationship. So you can be polyamist, but what is it about the marriage? We have children together.

We live together. So everything Sarah described about what a marriage is, we are monogamous. Non-monogamy is kind of the wrong word because monogamy means married to one person. We're not polygamous. I have one husband. share a home, we share a family, and we share our finances, and we're always there for each other. So marriage is still marriage to me, and my other relationships are very deep, loving, wonderful friendships that include sexual exploration. I'm interested that your parents were in an open relationship, but you didn't know about it.

Yeah, they were. How did you find out? My aunt, my mom's sister. Because when I read that about you, I thought, I wonder if there was a template. I wonder if that's why, you know, it was just easier because you'd seen it and it's like made sense to you. The one thing I did see was that my mother, who I later found out was my mother's lover, was I knew him as her best friend. And so I knew that they had this freedom in their lives, that they had friends of the opposite sex. I could hear my mother.

I write about this in the book. My mother laughing on the phone with her friend, who I found out later, was her love. lover, but there was a freedom and a lightness and a love in that relationship. And perhaps that influenced me to want something beyond my marriage that, you know, most, some women aren't even really given the freedom to have a friendship outside of their marriage. Yeah. Well, I mean, we know. We talk about it all the time. I've just had a comment in from somebody saying, very interesting about polyamory and being honest, as a man myself, I feel men hide behind adulterous relationships. I have to my shame. And maybe we need to be more honest with each other and ourselves.

Do you get judged? Oh, sure. Yeah, but don't we all? It's a favorite pastime in our society these days. Everybody loves to make themselves feel better by pointing the fingers at someone else when ultimately we have more in common than we have different. And my life really isn't very different from a lot of people. No, but I mean more judged because you're a woman making these choices. Oh, sure. And as a mother.

Yes. Mothers are not supposed to be sexual. I don't know if you heard, but it's a ridiculous rule since that's the only way to become a mother. not the only way, I shouldn't say. But yes, there are much stricter sexual norms put upon mothers than maybe any other subsection of the population. Sarah, are there lines to be drawn about what's good for the individual, what's good for the couple, what's good for a family?

Yes, absolutely. And I think that's a very important part. If a couple wants to make this a part of their relationship, if it's important to them, then that negotiation is really the only way that it's going to work. Again, if you kind of haunt the subredits, as I do, as a very nosy person, then you'll see a lot of people who come in sort of assuming that they've read the rule books, and that means that they're kind of pre-armed against any situation

that they're going to be confronting. And that isn't how a relationship works. And the other flip side of people being very rule-focused and less interested in negotiation is, and, you know, sorry to bring this back to, the more negative side. But if there is a partner who is coercive and controlling and who is really basically trying to use ethical non-monogamy, the structures of ethical non-monogamy as a mandate for doing whatever they want to do,

then kind of brandishing the rule book at their partner and saying you're doing it wrong, you're letting me down, you're not playing the game properly. Yeah. It can be a really effective way of imposing one partner. as will on the other and dragging them into situations that they're not comfortable with. And you can see the exact same dynamics and monogamous marriages. I mean, there are bad monogamous marriages and there are bad open marriages. So I just don't want to throw out

a practice because there are some bad actors. Fascinating conversation. Thanks to both of you for joining me to talk about that. Molly, Rodham, and Wynter and Sarah Dytum, thank you both. 84844 is the text number if you'd like to share your thoughts. Now, this week, the CBB's Parenting Download podcast has been looking at matriessence. The physical, psychological and emotional changes a woman goes through following after childbirth, something we've discussed here on Woman's Hour, joining Katie Thistleton and Governor B to explore why metriessence needs to be recognised as a distinct life stage like adolescents. Our BBC Health and Science reporter Smeather Mundasad and author and founder,

of the Motherkind podcast, Zoe Blaskey. I just wish that every single new mother, and not even every single new mother, every single person, every single person that employs a mother, loves a mother, has a mother, you know, needs to understand this word and this process. I often think, imagine if we didn't tell teenagers that they were going to go through puberty and adolescents.

Imagine if we just didn't tell them that. And they started to think, oh my God, why does my voice sound different? Why do I feel so moody? What's wrong with me? There must be something wrong with me. And then imagine if that teenager said to someone, I'm really struggling, what should I do?

And the advice they got back was, well, you just need to figure out a way to get back to your old self. Because that is what we tell mothers. And that is the most shaming, gas-lighting thing because you cannot go back to your old self. And the mothers that I see struggling the most are where that tension of, I just want to feel how I used to feel,

but it's impossible to feel that way. In that gap, that is where so much shame, so much feelings of loss and isolation and confusion comes. So it's just so important that we get this word and this work out there because I genuinely think we will see a huge seismic shift in how women experience that transition to motherhood by talking about this word. And you can listen or watch that full episode about matrescence

by searching for CBB's parenting download on BBC. sounds or eye player. For years, I've sounded like a broken record. I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure.

The story has always been no. I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story. Definitely just a story. From CBC's personally, this is creation. myth. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. Now, last week, the Spanish government formally pardoned a group of 53 women who were among thousands incarcerated during the dictator Francisco Franco's regime from 1939 to 1975. The women were detained as adolescents by the so-called Board for the Protection of Women

in institutions set up to house women that were said to have deviated from the norms of female behaviour as laid down by the regime and religious institutions. Well, to tell us more, I'm joined from Spain by Christina Garcia Casado, a freelance journalist and Daniel Canales, a researcher for Amnesty International, Spain, to find out more about what happened to these women and why. Christina and Daniel, welcome. I'm going to come to you first, Daniel, because in a ceremony last week, as I've mentioned, the Spanish government pardoned 53 survivors. What did they say?

Yeah, good morning. Yeah, the 20th of March, the Spanish government recognized as victims of the Francoist repression, these women who were, as you said, incarcerated in the bold of protection of women, which was an institution. It was a highly effective tool of repression against women, especially against women who did not abide by the rules of conduct, the Franco regime and the church wanted to impose. So this recognition is important for four main reasons.

So the first one is that, as I said, they are now recognized as victims of the Francoist repression in accordance with the Memory Democratic Act, which was passed in 2022. The second one is the pardon. So basically that any punishment, whether legal or administrative, they had suffered, is now null and void. The third one is that a recently created Truth Commission is going to investigate the human rights violations committed by this institution. We're talking about torture, violence, humiliation, about their children taking from then.

So this is going to be investigated by this Truth Commission. And the fourth is that the vote of protection is going to be a site, a place of memory. So these are really important steps in the recognition and the honor of the victims of the Francoist regime and specifically of the repression that women suffered. we're going to find out a bit about the history and why these women were incarcerated. But Daniel, why is this happening now, do you think? Well, I think it's happening because of the first, the Memory Democratic Act, which was passed in 2020. It did not mention expressly the women incarcerated in the patronage, in the board of protection of women.

But in the recent years, there have been many publications by the academia, by investigators and journalists, which has somehow put this question on the table. For many years now, the victims of the stolen babies, some of them who were incarcerated in the Board of Protection of Women have been claiming for a recognition, have been claiming for a law. So now I think maybe this recognition derives from all those claims, all those petitions, which have been on the table for the last years.

Christina, welcome. Tell us more about these young women. Who were they and why were they and so many others like them sent to these institutions? So those women were sent there and that's very important to understand. They were sent there a lot of times by their own families or also through denunciation, which was a common practice during the Franco regime. And the reason to be sent there could be any deviation, from the extreme view of how a woman should behave. But in reality, it was an obsessive control over women's sexuality. So we have a lot of cases regarding, for example, there were lesbian women, but also women who showed more interest in men that was deemed acceptable, or who love a man their family did not approve of,

maybe a teenager who smoked, who in some way broke this, treat rules or who had children out of wedlock, but in many cases, and that remarks the hypocrisy, the social hypocrisy, you know, that we suffered during the dictatorship in Spain, is that in many cases, those pregnancies were the result of abuse, they suffer at home by the parents who send them there or in the same reformatum themselves. For example, the have been reported cases involving a gardener at the reformatory. So those were very vulnerable, very young woman. Also, it's important to know what almost teenager, but sometimes as young as 12.

And their lives were completely destroyed in many ways, no, trauma, as my colleague pointed out, kids taking away, but also abuse and unpaid labor, because the nuns were supposed to be taking care of them, but they were working free, being minors for the nuns. Well, let's pick up on that, because what role did the church and the religious institutions play in this? So the role was strategic because it's important to know also that this was not a hidden institution is true that it was not well known, but it was official, it depended directly from the Ministry of Justice, and was operated by religious orders. So at the time, it was a common

threat to girls. If you don't behave, I'll send you to the nuns. And the nuns were seen socially as a way to protect girls or to, you know, make them behave. But that's why I think it has always seemed more acceptable that it really was. And behind that was abuse, was slave labor. And also a thing that we need to emphasize is that for the first time now, they are visible and they recognize as victims because it's devastating to know that this repressive institution also operated during the early years of democracy, while into the 80s.

And that is, that it was, that was unknown to most people. It's essential to understand that I say. Yeah, as you mentioned, Daniel, the institutions, they didn't close until 1985 after Franco's death. Why did it take so long? Well, I'd say it took so long as many other laws and institutions. institutions which somehow stayed long after Franco died. So in this regard, I think the Spanish state, Spanish society, has had the task of dealing with our past pending for so many years, for so many decades.

We changed our government, we changed our system, but the task of really establish justice, truth and reparations is still a task pending. Even now, this recognition is very important, but we have to have in mind that no criminal investigations have been undertaking on these cases and in other cases of torture or enforced disappearances occurred, committed during the Franco regime. So we've talked about the torture, the disappearances,

these young girls often being given to the institutions by their own families. But can we pick up a bit, Daniel, on the stolen babies, because Amnesty International in Spain, you're currently campaigning for a change in the law. Tell me a bit about that and how it's linked to these women. Yeah. The role of the church, as my colleague was explaining, was really important. Somehow it was a tool that Franco regime used in order to impose its ideology.

So in the moral level, basically the patronato, as I said, was a very highly effective, repressive tool. So in this regard, these women who were regarded as fallen women were regarded as not able, not capable, not good enough to be mothers. So the children were taken to other families, which were loyal to the Franco regime, which were, regarded as proper families, let's say. So basically, this institution deprived these women of taking vital decisions such as being a mother. Yeah. Christina, is a pardon enough?

It was just the start. Is further action required? So the victims are saying it's not enough, especially they said that when last year, the religious orders also apologised, They say, no, pardon is not enough. They are asking, as many victims of the dictatorships around the war, they are asking for truth, justice, and reparation.

And we have a lot of way to go on the three items, because as Daniel was saying, in Spain, this highlights the path that still remains in historical memory in our country, especially concerning women. So this, we are really behind on that. So we need to know more because there are,

the people who are investigating this say that we don't know a lot of what really happened and how many victims or how many kids were stolen. We need to know more. We need to repair those women because a part of their lives

was stolen, but also trauma lasts forever. Of course. A lot of them didn't even know that the place where they were taken to was kind of a prison. You know, like there are all these layers of injustice, right? And also I think the role of journalism and also like organization and advocates of human rights here is very important because I think what is important to know is that in Spain also we have now a movement that is against historical memory, no, with the far-rary, really campaigning against every act in every government they have said, no? So now we have young people really against these. And also there are young people who really don't know anything about dictatorship.

So these stories need to be known to remember which kind of country we were only decades ago. Not even that long ago. Well, it's been fascinating talking to both of you, and I'm sure it's something we will come back and speak about again as we hear and learn more. But for now, Christina Garcia, Casado and Daniel Canales, thank you very much for speaking to me from Spain. And we asked the Catholic Church in Spain for a response,

but have not yet heard back. Last week, they did offer a public apology to all those women whose rights and dignity were not recognized. 84844. Now, if you're a fan of medical dramas, you are going to love the pit. That's HBO's award-winning TV series sets in an emergency department of hospital.

UK viewers will be able to watch it on HBO Max for the first time as the American Streaming Service arrives in the UK this week. I'm delighted to say I'm joined in the studio by one of the actors Catherine Lanasa. She plays straight-talking nurse Dana Evans, a role that won her an Emmy. Welcome to Woman's Hour.

Thank you for having me. It's absolutely our pleasure. I binge-watched. Honestly, I am so in. We are going to get to the Emmy. But first of all, tell us about the pit. What's the pit? Tell me about the pit. It is a 15-episode medical drama.

It takes place across one day. The entire season is just one day. So it's hour by hour in the lives of these healthcare workers. And it ends up being really a microcosm into society as a whole and the problems that we're facing as people come into this trauma unit. It's about the relationships. It's about the effect of COVID. health care workers. When we first started doing it, I asked John Wells, like, our EP, like,

what do you want? Is it like a documentary? And he said, no, a documentary identifies the subject. I want to feel like you're inside it. So I think that's something that the viewer can expect. It's very arresting. It's very just up close and personal. They don't dumb down any of the medical language. It takes you on a real electrifying journey, I think, every episode. Yeah, there's a real pace to it. And I think that as probably because of the technique, this hour, a real-time hour in the life of the emergency department. Do you think that's the secret to its success? I don't know. I mean, I think it's been really fun to play. It really kind of strips away any artifice. You have to, I've just felt this call to be incredibly real

with it. And so I think there's a sense of voyeurism. I think people feel drawn into it because everyone in it is so busy doing what they're doing. And we're telling real story. that everyone can relate to. Everyone's been to the trauma department or their family member has, and so they're very human stories. Yeah, and there's a lot of humanity in it. You play Dana, the favorite of the pit fans.

She's straight, talking, but she's got such a beautiful heart. Let's hear a clip. This is you showing a student nurse, The Ropes, in the first episode of series two. Most important rule around here, be smart, be safe. Can't warn you enough about protecting yourself and your fellow nurses.

We use the stamp acronym to assess patients. You know it? S is for staring or refusal to make eye contact. If they're staring, they're scaring. T? T. Tone of voice. Often the threat level rises with their voice. A is for anxiety.

You can also think aggression. M is mumbling. If you listen closely enough, as often them saying what they're thinking of doing as they talk themselves up to it. And P? Pacing. Good.

We also have a say for it. Hula hoop. I guess technically it's two words, but whatever. If there's a threat, say hula hoop. and we'll all respond. I'm smiling because I would tell you that, you know, as well as all the sort of drama and the medical stuff

and the real-life experiences that you're seeing as being dramatized, the characters are just gorgeous. Yeah. And yours in particular. She's so likable, so relatable. What is it about her? I think a lot of tired old women relate to me. Yeah, I think a lot of women, you know, that are balancing a lot.

I mean, mothers and non-mothers, I think, You know, women carry a lot. I think we carry a lot of emotional weight, you know, for ourselves and for others, for everyone around. And I think even working, ambitious working women, I still think we carry a lot of emotional toll. I think there is just something inside women where they really want to care and take care of other people. And I think that's very relatable about Dana. I think she's just very maternal. I love that they allowed me to be tough and broken and imperfect and also heroic and maternal. I think that's what it is.

You see all of that in how you play it. Like she's very direct, but she's so kind. You know, she's just straight talking but full of heart. And I mean, it's so rapid. There's so much happening at the same time. I just want to know a bit about the filming process. Is it true that the crew wear scrubs in case they're caught? Yeah, everyone wears scrubs and we don't really have a green room.

We just, there's a family room that you see on the show sometimes, and we'll go in there if we have a little bit of a longer break. But mainly we kind of all stand around in scrubs and figure out what we're going to do next, and they decide how they're going to set up a shot. There's no tripods. There's no marks on the floor. It's just this fluid dance between the camera and sound and lighting department and us. We're pre-lit, so they have a board in the back where they can kind of change stuff in the ceiling. And a guy walks around sometimes with a pole with like a light on the end. If he wants to give you a little more, they put some lights on the camera.

They need to give you a little more light. But it's not a beauty show. No. It's what it is. Well, it's a lot. And if you're squeamish, I mean, it's a lot. There's a lot. It's a lot.

A lot of blood. And there's clearly a lot of thought and expertise that goes into the scripting and the recording of it because you mentioned there, apart from the medical storylines, you're sort of reflecting what's going on in society. And in this season, there was a decision to tackle ICE. That's the U.S. Immigration and Customs. enforcement agents. No spoilers, obviously, about the storyline. But what does it feel to tackle such a political issue and quite a contentious issue as well? Imperative? Yeah. It feels imperative.

Yeah. That's you on screen in it. But what do you like off screen? What am I like? Yes. Are you, do you, what do you like under pressure? What am I like under pressure? I'm pretty cool under pressure. Yeah, I'm pretty cool under pressure. I say a little prayer. If I really am nervous, I say a little prayer. I would say a little prayer.

Yeah. Yeah, I try to just connect with my higher power and give it away. Just let's do with this. You know what I mean? I mentioned in the queue that you won an Emmy for this role. Congratulations. Thank you.

But I'm really interested in the sort of lead up to you getting that Emmy because just before landing the part, you were planning to move to Atlanta. Tell us where you were at that point in your life. We were actually living in Atlanta. We'd move there. My husband was the star of dynasty.

I don't know if you call that dynasty here. Dynasty. Yeah. In other countries, La Dina Stia. But yeah, he was the star of that. That shot in Atlanta. And I have a, my youngest is school-aged. So we kept her in school there even after dynasty ended.

And yeah, all the auditions were on tape. So there was no going in a meeting with creativity. and you were just sending these tapes out into the universe, and it wasn't working for me. I wasn't getting any jobs. And I had cancer. So I was living away from Hollywood with cancer and kind of frighteningly unemployed. For the first time, I had worked like for the last 15 years solid. Once my career took off, it was like, it was going. And it was, it was a really hard period. Yeah. And I was thinking about building, we sold a house in L.A. and I was thinking, was going to build a backhouse onto the house in Atlanta so that I could teach and I could

coach others to act. So we're almost given up on the career. Well, it wasn't happening. So after about three years of pretty serious unemployment, I thought, well, what are we going to do now? We got a pivot. And then you got the role. Then I got the role. And everything changed.

Yeah. And your greatest success has come to you in your 50s. Yes. How do you view that? Oh, my God. Every time someone I ask me in that, I literally feel like I want to cry. Because I loved my life anyway. I really did love my life, even though I was scared.

You know, I love my children, love my husband, and I love life. I do. I love nature and cooking and all the things of, I love the earth. You know, and so it has just been so beautiful and so unexpected. It's overwhelming. It is really like a little slice of heaven. And it's so unbelievably nice. And I love working on the show.

I love my bosses. It's just been great. I mean, I'm kind of taken aback by it. It's amazing. But at least I'm present for it. Yeah. If you know, I follow you on Instagram and we can live it through your Instagram. It's pure joy.

There's beautiful clips of you for the first time at Paris Fashion Week. Yeah. Fabulous, like this whole new lease of life that you've had. I do want to ask because you did bring. up, you know, I mean, I said in the opener that you had a breast cancer diagnosis. I wonder what going through the sort of medical process and meeting nurses and having treatment yourself, how that prepared you for your role in the pet. I think that was what it's kind of when I feel so moved by it, what was sort of so spiritual about it. You know, people always tell you this has a purpose or something.

And, you know, the way that it worked out was really quite beautiful. You know, everything about going through that hard period and the grief of that and being hospitalized, as I call it, being a cancer patient, prepared me for the pit. And one nurse in particular, I had some complications that I'd keep going back to the hospital. And that's when I broke. Like when I just felt like, am I ever going to get better? Is this ever going to stop? And I just was crying in the hospital in the triage, you know, and the nurse just took me aside and she didn't have to. And she just said, you know, sometimes the first six months after cancer are just really bumpy and it's not going to stay like this.

It will even out. My sister-in-law is going through this. You know, it will get better, you know, and do you need an ad of hand? But just the humanity of that. And it made me realize, and also nurses that brought me like a warm blanket, when I was doing a scan, it made me, I really internalized how much those little moments meant. And I think that's a big part of Dana. You know, it's just that humility to serve in a way that serves the patient's emotional needs as well.

You see it. And no spoilers, but just when she offers the guy who lives on the street a sandwich. It's a beautiful moment. Very quickly, what does dancing mean? Should we all be dancing? Yeah, dance, man. It's really good for your soul. It's good for your brain.

It's good for your body. And it's fun. Because you started life as a ballet dance I've seen again. You're on point again. You're training. New lists of life. When you think about your life now, what's your outlook? Wow.

You know, I just want to live it with grace. You know, this moment won't last forever. And I want to be, you know, I just want to be graceful about it all and appreciate what I have. Catherine, we love it. Thank you for the pit. You're fantastic and it's a great series. and we will continue to watch you go from strength to strength. Who knows what's next?

We look forward to watching you on all of it. I'm going to read out a couple of messages that have come in about second lease of life. My husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's two years ago. However, a shift of mindset has worked wonders. I am lucky. Some people lose loved ones with no notice. I know what's coming and we have time to plan and enjoy our lives whilst we can.

Join me tomorrow for more Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi there. I'm Izzy Judd, and I'm so pleased to be back with the Music and Meditation podcast series six. We'll be talking about everything from reframing anxiety to getting a good night's sleep. So if you need to find some moments of calm in your day, subscribe to the music and meditation podcast on BBC Sounds.

For years, I've sounded like a broken record. I do not want kids. I do not ever want to have kids. I don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. Don't want to have a kid. I'm in my 40s now. The door is almost. closed. And suddenly, I'm not so sure. The story has always been no. I'm just wondering to what degree it's just a story. Definitely just a story. From CBC's personally, this is creation myth. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.