Woman's Hour - 28/08/2025

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

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

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Ever feel like car shopping is designed to make your second guess yourself? Is this a good price? Am I making the right choice? With car gurus, you don't have to wonder. They have hundreds of thousands of cars from top-rated dealers and advanced search tools, deal ratings and price history. So you know a great deal when you see one. That's cairg-g-U-R-U-S.ca.cagurus.cagurus.ca.cagurus.ca.

Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. There's a new drama beginning on ITV called I Fought the Law. It stars Sheridan Smith, who plays Anne Ming. Anne's daughter Julie was murdered in 1989, but the murderer was acquitted. The double jeopardy rule in law meant he couldn't be tried for the same crime twice. Anne spent 17 years fighting to change the law and succeeded. I'll be speaking to Anne Ming shortly.

Ahead of the World Athletics Championship, which starts on September 13th in Tokyo, World Athletics will require all athletes competing in the female category to undergo a one-time test to determine their biological sex. We'll be getting the details shortly. And The Wonder of Wool is a new coffee table book celebrating British sheep and All Things Woolly.

Knitware designer Justine Lee, who's written the book, went back into education after learning about the environmental cost of fashion. One shocking finding of hers was we wear an item of clothing five times before we throw it away. So this morning, I'd like you all to share your clothes stories. How do you shop? Do you love a vintage shop, or as we once used to call them second-hand shops? Are you someone who needs to buy something new every week, wear once and then, and then what? You can remain anonymous.

Or tell me about the treasured item you've kept for years and years, a hand-me-down, munched jumper that was once maybe grannies. Or if you simply want to share your love of wool and knitting, then please get in touch in the usual way. The text number is 84844. You can email the program by going to our website and the WhatsApp

number is 037100-400-444. And if you'd like to follow us on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour. But the text number once again 84844. First though, the fertility rate has fallen for the third year in a row to reach a record low in England, Wales and Scotland.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the average number of children women can expect to have in England and Wales is now 1.41, the lowest recorded since data was first collected in 1938, while the Scottish rate is 1.25. The average age of parents is also continuing to rise with mothers aged 31 and father's 33 and nine months.

Well, to discuss what might be behind these figures and what they could mean for the UK population and women's lives. I'm joined by Dr. Bernice Kwong. Fertility and family researcher at the University of Southampton. Welcome to Women's Hour. Right, let's get into some of these figures. Overall decline of fertility, right, since 2010. Why has that happened? What's going on, Bernice? Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me. Yeah, fertility has declined, and our research has specifically looked at disaggregating this decline by first, second and third births. we found that the decline in the last, you know, since 2010, is a lot of that is accounted for by

declines in the first birth. So people are putting off having that first birth. Once they do have that first birth, so far, most people still do tend to have that second or third child. So the average family size in the UK is still around two for people who do have children. But yeah, yeah, that decline is mostly, declines in first birth and now increase among people across social groups. So historically, you might have seen more educated or affluent people, postponing starting a family. But now we see more and more people across social groups might do that as well.

And an average age rise in the age of parents. In two decades, it's increased by two years. So age at first parents is, I think, not always the most specific or precise measure because it includes not just first-time parents, but people having their second and third children as well. So the average first birth for the first child is around 30, which, you know, it's high. But when I ask my students, my undergrad, if they think it's high, they're like, what? No, that sounds perfectly average and normal.

Not news to me at all. So what's happened? What's changed in women's lives? Well, you know, in women's lives and young men's lives and everyone's lives, I think young people now, you know, we find that they're very reluctant to start a family if they feel. apprehension about their futures and economic uncertainty. I mean, the reason we know all this really nuanced, great information about the UK, like young people in the UK as a whole, is because of the survey we work on, which was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council called the Generations and Gender Survey,

rolled out for the first time in the UK. So now we have this great information about Gen Z, millennials and older millennials, and even younger Gen X, And a lot of it is linked to economic uncertainty and, you know, just a little bit of pessimism about the future. Is it a temporary drop? Do you think this could be reversed? Well, you know, people may continue to postpone having children because, you know, like the young people I talk to in class and at the university, they don't think 30 is old at all. So if that age continues to climb to 31, 32, we will continue to see the fertility level. levels decline. But if it stops climbing, we may see a little bit of a rebound or a plateauing.

And then on the flip side, of course, if people do postpone starting a family and then run out of time to have the two or three children that they want, then we'll also see the average family size decline in the UK. So far it's been very robust in the UK. Like there's a very strong two-child norm in the UK. People really like two or more children. What's the impact of this decline, the term impact what could happen well to me the most the most important long-term impact is that I don't think it's acceptable if young people want to have children and they feel so you know pessimistic about the futures that they don't feel like they can so I don't think that's acceptable from a human

rights perspective reproductive freedom is important and that includes both being you know not having children if you don't want children but being able to have children if you want them it's a pretty you know universal human want you know it's not extravagant it should be a luxury item. So I think that's the most important impact. But of course, policymakers will always talk about, you know, the size of the working population, how, you know, if there's really low fertility, then we may, we may see like a dearth of working age adults later in the future that can impact the economy. Yeah. I mean, you see that in places around the world. Can you give us some

context about what's happening elsewhere? I know that you're specific, you specifically have looked at Western Europe, but you can give us a broad brush look at what's happening in other countries? Sure. So these kinds of declines are happening across Europe and in high-income countries like in East Asia, like Japan, Singapore, you know, in many Western countries. And there's cross-national differences, right? So in some countries, having a one-child family may be completely normal. So there's differences in those cultural norms. But fertility is declining in a lot of countries. The UK is certainly not alone in that in that way. And not only that, but in countries where we have historically seen that fertility has been very robust because of strong support for parents

and, you know, higher levels of gender equality like Scandinavian countries, they're also grappling with, you know, trying to figure out this puzzle of why fertility keeps declining. So the UK is not alone in seeing this fertility decline. And in Europe, in particular, there's been a lot of interest in how the role of economic uncertainty can help us understand why, you know, young people are reluctant to serve families. So you've done the research, Bernice. You've spoken to young people and your students. Break it down for us. Kind of tell us about, you know, is it when you say economic uncertainty, what are the concerns of people who are choosing not to or putting off having children? Well, one great thing about the generations and gender survey is that

it's the only UK study that we know of that asks about the actual cost of childcare. And child care is prohibitive for many families, especially lower-income families. Lower-income families spend a larger proportion of their household income on child care and then higher-income families. So child care is absolutely prohibitive. And I think young people are becoming more and more aware of that before they start a family. They know, oh my gosh, I'm going to have to be ready to like pay an on my leg for child here. Housing obviously is very unaffordable. And in the UK, there's still a little bit of a social norm, a cultural norm, that you own a house before you start a family. Now that's slowly changing and people do have children start their families in

private rented accommodation, but private rented accommodation is not always stable. You know, you can be asked to leave whenever, and it's not always high quality. So, you know, there's variation, there's a need for there to be consistent quality, private accommodation. A lot of people talk about fears about the climate change, but our data hasn't really found that there's a strong link between people being worried about climate change and then also saying, oh, no, no, no, I don't plan to have children. So, yeah, those are three, you know, common things we hear about all the time and um and what about women in makes a lot of sense right of course yeah child care very important what about women in the workforce oh so another great thing about our studies that we found that

child care still continues to be very very unequally divided even between families where both the mom and the dad or were i mean unfortunately it's very heteronormative but unfortunately um oh yeah so even where both parents work full time you know are engaged and paid work outside of the home, child care remains persistently unequally divided. And, you know, the difficulty of reconciling work and family life can also be an impediment for some people, especially young people who have maybe have different priorities and expectations for what they want their lives to look at, look like. There is a perspective and a point of view where people say, surely this is better for

the health of the planet overall, for there to be less humans on it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I have to say, like, okay, well, technically, yes, if you don't exist, then yes you can't consume but that's a little that's like throwing literally the baby out with the bathwater there's so many other things the world can do to mitigate environmentally related issues you know so many things that can be done on a structural level a corporate level you know it's like feeling guilty about not being able to recycle the the plastic your vegetables come in when that when like there's so many other things that should be done before you as one individual feel guilty about sorting your recycling properly. You know, everyone should try to resort. They're recycling properly. But I think

it's a little bit of a, like, post facto kind of justification. You know, there are so many better things and more ethical things that should be addressed before individuals need to feel bad about the very universal human desire to want a family. And if we keep going, if the trend keeps going this way and we're having fewer and fewer children, what could the long-term impact be? I know you mentioned briefly that there'd be a decline in the workforce this is quite a serious thing right there could um i mean there people usually appoint to immigration as a way to mitigate workforce shortages but you know migrants eventually age as well um and it's not an easy environment for a lot of migrants um in in a lot of places not just the UK um so yeah yeah it can it can certainly impact the size

of the working population, and it probably well. And so what's your thought for, what are government's doing to doing about it? Not enough. What should they be doing about it? They should be helping, you know, the way I see it and the way what our data points do is that young people really need a lot more support in getting their lives started. The transition to adulthood is a lot more decent. now where young people have more options, but they also have, you know, in some ways,

constrained opportunities. So, you know, like securing housing, securing stable work, that all of that is very difficult for young people today. So unfortunately, it's not news and it's not the most like exciting, innovative, novel answer, but, you know, we go to this research and again and again, it kind of tells us that your economic circumstances are really important to, you know, to to deciding to have children or not. Equality? Could that be one step? Something that we should be looking at?

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I always hesitate when talking about sort of pro-natalist policy, so to speak, because the last thing we want is for reproductive freedom to be rolled back or family planning access. I think equality, especially in the division of child care, it needs to be supported. So our work found that in families where flexible working was used by the father, these families tended to divide child care more equally.

So this push towards, you know, return to office is maybe not going to be very good for father engagement. And father engagement is really important because it's good for men and it's good for children. So structural things to continue to support uplift, you know, the journey towards equality are really important. You know, it's very well known that the pay gap opens it. as soon as women have children, and it never closes across the lifetime. Across an entire lifetime, you will never make up your earnings deficit,

even if you made more money than your partner before you had children. I mean, it's quite galling, but I'm sure it's not a surprise to most of the listeners that these continue to be the circumstances in 2025. Yeah, certainly not the woman's hour listeners anyway. Bernice, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us this morning. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Bernice, Kwong, there, 8444, if you want to share your own personal story. If anything you hear on the programme makes you want to tell us about your own experience, then please do feel free to get in touch. Now, when Anne Ming's 22-year-old daughter, Julie, went missing in Billingham, County Durham in 1989, Anne knew something was terribly wrong and begged the police to find her. The police launched an investigation, but following the search of Julie's house, they failed to find her, insisting she'd probably gone away. Three months after Julie's disappearance, it was Anne herself who went to the house and found Julie's body under the bath. A local man, William Dunlop, was charged with murder, but juries

twice failed to find him guilty and due to the double jeopardy law of the time he was unable to be retried. Anne fought for 17 years to change that law and gain justice for Julie. Her experience has now been turned into a four-part ITV drama I fought the law based on a book she wrote for the love of Julie. Anne joins me now and her account contains details which some of you may find distressing. But first, let's hear a clip from the drama in which the part of Anne is played by Sheridan Smith, here talking to the police. As she ran away before? Oh God, she's not run away, I've told you. Something's happened to her. Putting parents through the ringer is part of what kids do, Mrs Min.

No, not Julie. Look, have you found anything unusual, anything at all? There's no dead bodies in here if that's what you mean. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. Do you think I needed to hear that? Everything's in perfect border right now, but we're still looking. It's a makeup bag. How would you only... She'd never go anywhere without her makeup, not even to the end of the street.

Please, you've got to listen to me. I'm listening. We'll be in touch once we've completed the search. And welcome to Women's Hour. Thank you for asking me. I think we should start by talking about Julie. What was she like? Well, when she was a child, she was quite a sullen child.

You know, she was quiet, and she wasn't, like, really outgoing. And then she got married, you know, fairly young and had her son, Kevin. And then she seemed like, you know, a bit more outgoing then. So she loved music. She loved to dance. And she would put her as a girl and I saw every day, every day. If, you know, if I didn't see her, she'd be on the phone. And the nickname me at work was baby

Because she would never have her gone And so that was in the day When she went missing I was so adamant Something had happened to her Yeah I watched the first episode And we'll talk about Sheridan Smith

A little bit later on But in the first episode It leads you to finding Julie's body It's incredibly powerful, harrowing And upsetting to watch I wonder what it was like for you It was horrendous because at the end of the five days searched with the forensics,

the inspector said he couldn't guarantee me that Julia hasn't come to grief somewhere. I don't know if I've got a dry throat. I couldn't guarantee that Julia hadn't come to grief somewhere in the country, but could guarantee me that nothing unto what has happened to her in the house. So she'd been missing for three months and decided to give my son-in-law the key, the mid-New key, because all the keys were missing. give you in the key to move back into the house with my grandson so i went down to the house with him then to bring our jury's clothes out i didn't want them like you know with my grandson going to be in the

house we're seeing all the things and never know there's anything wrong in the house then but it had been shut up since november it was now it was the end of january and um so we moved all the clothes and everything else there's fingerprint just all over the place but the next day my son-in-law went to the house he was going to start and clean the fingerprint dust and he put the central heating on which had been off three months and he rang with me he said to me there's a horrible smell in the bathroom so I said it'd be the toilet I said it doesn't been used for three months so put some bleach down you're only going to be there a couple of hours and you know don't use a toilet while you're there that was on the Saturday on the Sunday you and was there a couple of

hours then on the Monday I would pop into go and see if you got rid of the smell to remind me he was picking Kevin up from the playgroup so when I opened the door I said he got rid of the smell he said it's getting getting worse I start I'll get out the way I'll go and see myself because I'm going up the stairs to the bathroom inside I'm screaming please god don't let it be jolly because at that point I'd worked in an operating theatre theatre nurse for over 25 year yeah just knew what the smell could be so when I went into the bathroom and before they'd split up he was going to tell the walls around the bath, so he'd taken all the tiles off

and then they'd split up so they were just left so I prayed that it would be the wall where the tiles had been to where the smell was so I leaned over the bath to smell the wall and my knees went against the hardboard panel it was an old house and as I went against the panel with my knees it like waft a bit like that

and the smell come out stronger and I just bent down and pulled it open and she was under the bath and well that was just horrific and self and I just screamed at my son-in-law she's under the bath, she's under the bath

so he died 9-99 and within minutes there was police cars and vans and one of the police officers who, you know, being sent no news as good news. I ran over and I said to him I told her she hadn't gone to London but nobody would listen I didn't you listen

and I want to know what they've been joining the house for five days anyway I wanted I said we don't know

what you've found yet and I'm trying to pull him back to take him to prove that they've been wrong but of course

I couldn't because they were putting this blue white tape across the front of the house and I was putting to my car with my grandson

and brought home with the policewoman that was the start of a living nightmare Yeah I mean we know that eventually you

have overturned the double jeopardy law but let's kind of go back to your daughter's murderer why were you so sure he was guilty the evidence they had against him was overwhelming the one thing they didn't have it was like the actual cause of death

because she'd been like be on the bath for three months it was sort of like ah the ark so that puts an elemented out just a jury and so that was the one thing that was inelented of but the forensic evidence had against him the police said to us before and they said we've got overwhelming evidence against him that's before it went to trial

and they did have but you all know as well as I know it's not down to the evidence the police, the CPS is down to a jury and one of the detectives on the murder case had said it's not looking very promising because if they don't come to a unanimous on majority verdict he'll quit him

and they did On the evidence, that's what it did. Yeah. Couldn't make the mind of. They quitted him. And then you tried to overturn the 800-year-old double jeopardy law. Why? And again, why were you convinced?

Well, the reason why, I mean, I never, I didn't doubt that the police had got, you know, I thought they'd definitely got the right man. But why it was, it was like, when he was freed, he was bragging in local pubs. He'd gotten away with the perfect murder. You know, bragging how he'd kill Julie and conserved a body. and then he sort of behaved himself for a while and then he attacked another man and woman and after that attack

they both neither of them died he was charged with attempted murder and he got that drop to gravest bodily harm even though he'd nearly kill both of them and what he did then was he sent to death letter to the woman you tried to kill and in the letter he said when he was released it would do whatever he did to Jolie

so the police came to see us we didn't know about this the police came to see us and said unfortunately because the double jeopardy law he can't be retried for murder but he can be tried for perjury and because he'd had two trials it was two counts of perjury

and so that was he got chatted two counts of perjury and in the court his defence barrister said the reason why he'd confessed was because he felt sorry for Jolie's family and especially Jolie's son the prosecuting barrister said

that was a lot of rubbish he'd taken legal advice in the later Stephen Lawrence case and the McPherson report McPherson is recommended changes in the double jeopardy law in the light of the Lawrence case and so

the prosecutor barrister said it's the first time in legal history anybody who's confessed in a court of law before after they've been acquitted of a murder people have confessed in newspapers and programs but never in a court of law before

because of the double jeopardy law it could only be sentenced to who comes to perjury which you only got six years and it was that it was that what incensed me to think to Mars said this is not right

in this day and age you can confess in a court that you've been responsible for somebody's murder and only be charged with perjury that's not right I went to my MP the next day

what did they say he didn't know what to say he said my wife he was really held for Franco I said we're not happy with a purchase sentence, what you're going to do about it? I said, I want to go and see the Home Secretary Jack Straw. I said, if I write a letter, will you take it to him?

I have no computer I didn't have then. And it was a handwritten letter, and I wrote to Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, and we arranged to go and meet with him. You were told by your solicitor and your husband that it would be impossible to change the law. Absolutely. The solicitor said, and he was in good faith, you know, He just said, I said, I'm going to look about changing this

list of a jeopardy law. He said, no matter what the politicians tell you, they will never, ever change this law in a platter of respectively. Yeah. And he said, listen to what the solicitor is telling us. I said, I don't care what you say or what he says, I am going to do something about this law. I'm glad I struck it out.

Where does that determination come from? I don't know. I felt so passionately about, if you look at it practically, common sense thing to do when there's a proven wrongful conviction I admit that that person should be freed but when there's a proven wrongful acquittal such as ours surely the same principles should apply

which it didn't with a double jeopardy in place it does now and I mean I don't know why politicians were so frightened to change this law the safeguards that they've built into it is very very stringent the safeguards are you can only have one chance and one chance it's a retrial the evidence

has got to be new and compelling that was not available at any previous trials the retrial has got to be heard at the other end of the country from the original trials so them stringent safeguards I mean when the law did change

there was 35 families from the country without acquittals not all of them will get a retrial it's very very difficult And for you, it was clear. You saw it as it was. For you, this didn't make sense and you were going to do everything in your power

to do whatever you could do as a mother. But what, I mean, 17 years you fought for, what lengths did you have to go to? It was trying to win politicians. I wonder what we're opposing it. You know, I don't know why they were so frightened of it. I just sort of felt, well, I felt it's like a common sense thing to do. we're taking part in like documentaries

to gather momentum because you needed like you needed people to think well look at the law Well that was quite significant that documentary wasn't it because this was it the first time you'd spoken out

and was it nearly nine million people watched it That's right and eight well over nine million viewers they all the emails and letters that account and television received and all was in favour which you know was good because you were governing momentum

but people were thinking yeah it needs to be looking looked at. I mean, I've said before in the past, probably you've done it yourself, that needs to be changed. But unless you feel passionate about it, and for us, as a family, it was a difference between getting justice for our daughter and to make difference for other families in the future. And just living in a state of limbo with no conviction. Where does your resilience come from, Anne? No, I've no idea. People say to me, did you ever think of giving up this time when I've been in a really dark place when, you know, it was when politics. It was when politics. politicians. My MP were really kept me posted. If was anybody opposed, I would write to them and say, look, you know, and then I went on television once and it was the head of the law commission, no, the head of the law society. And he was disagreeing against it. And you're trying

to win it around. You said, oh, there may only be once in a blue moon case. And, you know, and I thought to myself, you're not listening to what I'm saying to you. It's going to make a difference if they change the law for the future. And it's not going to be easy to get a real. trial. So I think what some people thought, especially politicians, it was going to open the floodgates and it was going to be thousands of cases coming through. I think there's been 16 all together

and that's with changing in Scotland, being a family from Scotland. So what was the problem with them all? And now this has been turned into a drama for ITV. What was it like to watch Sheridan Smith playing you? It was like watching me, to be quite honest. I mean, when, I mean, a few times

different companies approached me about doing a drama and I thought I don't know and I got encouraged by people to write a book I did that and then when the television company mentioned the drama and then when he had productions for my TV contacted me they said that they were going to suggest Sheridan Smith. Play me. Well I've watched everything Sheridan and Smith said but I'm not saying that because she she played me in this ever watched everything and I thought if anybody can do me play me she can and it's time when I watched her, because obviously I've watched all episodes, it was like watching

myself. It's as though she's got inside me. She's extraordinary. Are you prepared on for the attention that this drama is going to bring to the story? I really didn't expect all this interest on doing interviews. I really didn't think that. I know they'll promote, you know, going to promote it, but I didn't, I didn't think, you know, that. I just, I've been surprised how many people are, like, shown more of it, much of an interest in it. You're 80 Yeah, in December Okay, in December, sorry

What effect has This fight for justice had on you? It's sort of like, I think for years I lived and breathed, double jeopardy You know, I mean, I want any Any arguments with politicians Anything in a paper, a pause And it's, I just lived and breath

I must have been an nightmare to live with To be quite honest, I must have been Because when you're campaigning You're frightened to like, anything slip you don't want anything to slide back do you know what i mean yeah but what about on yourself anne well i just i don't know i just felt as though i just had to carry on carry on doing it you know so i don't know where i got the strength if i'm to if i'm truthful for i'm glad i did it you see i had a bit of a break because i mean um after it got into the white paper

it had to go to the House of Lords which is a difficult one, the House of Lords because they can bounce it back to Parliament and I'd gone to a victim's conference at Newcastle and Lord Faulkner was the Justice for Victims Minister a guest speaker and in that room there was about 200 families would all have somebody murdered

and quite a few would add acquittals in that room so at the lunch break he'd come off the podium and he walked around near me and I just got about my seat and just pulled into the seat next message Lord Faulkner can you get me to come to the House of Lords to speak to these people who were going to debate the different jeopardy and he said I can picture him now he said would you do that because I'll give you a week to organise it

but I'll tell you one thing thanks Lord Falkin and everybody else who has ever helped me over the years because he got me to the House of Lords Anne Ming thank you so much for taking the time to speak to me this morning thank you Anne I thought the law will air on ITV and STV and it will be available to stream on ITVX and STV player this autumn followed by

I Fork the Law, the Anming story documentary produced by multi-story media. Now, the World Athletics Championship starts in Tokyo on the 13th of September. Ahead of that from next Monday, world athletics will require all athletes competing in the female category to undergo

a one-time test for the SRY gene or sex-determining region Y-gene. World Athletics say this test is a reliable proxy for determining biological sex. sports editor, Dan Rowan, is here to explain the test, the reasons why World Athletics have introduced it and the wider implications for the debates around biological sex and inclusion in sports. Dan, welcome to Woman's Hour.

Thank you. I think we should start by understanding the test itself. What's it looking for? What is the SRY gene? Well, SRY, Anita, it stands for sex determining region Y gene, which is part of the Y chromosome and it causes male characteristics to develop. Now, World Athletics says that this gene is. a highly accurate proxy for biological sex. So if a human embryo has XY chromosomes, the

SRY gene leads to the formation of testes, which then produce hormones, of course, including testosterone, leading to male development and which can increase muscle mass and strength. Now, research has shown that athletes who are born male and passed through male puberty generally have physiological advantages over those born female who have XX chromosomes and no SRY gene. And so this test is designed to determine biological sex in any cases when it may be unclear, such as with athletes who are DSD, as it's known, those born with differences in sex development. That's a group of reconditions whereby a person's hormones, genes, and or reproductive organs may be a mix of male and female characteristics. Now, some can be born with external female genitalia, but also have functioning testes and are often certified as female at birth and indeed raised as sex.

such. How will it be conducted the test and who's going to be responsible for administering it? Well, it's a gene test conducted via a cheek swab or a blood test. An athlete only has to do it once in their life. If the test is negative for the Y chromosome, i.e. it's absent. The athlete's eligible to compete in the female category in all world ranking athletics competitions. But if it's positive, i.e. it's detected the Y chromosome. That athlete can only compete in the female category in non-world ranking competitions or in another category other than the female one. And as you say, Anita, these new regulations, they come in on Monday ahead of the World Championships that start next month in Tokyo. In the short term, each national

federation will conduct the tests for their respective athletes. And I think this is effectively track and field's latest attempt really to find a solution to one of the sports most hotly contested issues, that of sex eligibility. Why has World Athletics chosen this as the basis for determining eligibility in female categories? How did they reach that decision? Well, ultimately, the governing body says that this test is needed to ensure the integrity of women's sport to protect female athletes and ensure fairness by keeping anyone with male physiological advantages out of women's competition. Athletics, of course, are spent years wrestling with eligibility criteria amid questions over biological advantages for transgender and DSD athletes.

And it's been steadily making its rules stricter in 2023. It banned transgender women who had gone through male puberty from competing in women's events. It retained a testosterone-based approach, however, for DSD athletes, insisting that they reduce their natural testosterone level with medication in order to be eligible. However, earlier this year, a World Athletics Working Group recommended going further with a pre-clearance test for the SRY gene to determine, if an athlete was biologically female. It's really important in a sport

that's permanently trying to attract more women that they enter a sport believing there's no biological glass ceiling, said it's President Lord Co at the time. At elite level for you to compete in the female category, you have to be biological female, he said, adding that gender could not trump biology. DSD athletes, of course,

have been a major issue in track and field, the most high-profile case being South Africa's double Olympic 800-meter champion, Casta Semenia, DSD condition 46 XY5 ARD as it's known. Now, people with that particular DSD have male XY chromosomes, but some are recorded as female at birth, depending on their external genitalia. Semenya insists she is a woman.

At Rio 2016, the Olympics then, all three medalists in the women's 800 metres were DSD athletes, including the winner that was Semenya, intensifying concerns over an unfair advantage and calls for tighter rules to protect fairness. Back in 2019, a full decade after Semenya became the world champion in the 800 metres, World Athletics brought in rules for track events from 400 metres up to the mile, insisting that DSD athletes in those events had to reduce their testosterone levels to be eligible. At the time, the governing body argued in court that Semenya was biologically male, a claim that outraged her.

She refused to undergo hormone treatment to reduce her testosterone, arguing it was an infringement on her human rights, and it was discriminatory. But two years ago, wild athletics regulations were then toughened up and indeed extended, DSD athletes then had to reduce their testosterone level further. They were told it had to remain under a lower threshold for two years, for longer, in order to compete internationally in the female category. And this then applied to any track and field event. Several top sprinters missed out on the world championships as a result.

So the decision taken earlier this year to introduce this gene test, I think it's very much a continuation of this longer trend with World Athletics claiming that new evidence showed that testosterone suppression could only partly mitigate the overall male advantage in the sport of athletics. We should make it clear though, Dan, shouldn't we? This test is only being introduced by World Athletics. Do you know if any other sports or sporting bodies

are going to introduce something similar? It looks that way. Other sports bodies appear to be moving in a similar direction. World Aquatics has reserved the right to a chromosomal sex screen in its anti-doping policy. And in May, world boxing also approved the use of the SRY test when it introduced mandatory sex testing for all fighters. Now, this followed a major controversy in the women's boxing competition

at the Paris Games last year when two fighters, Imman Khalif and Ling You Ting, both won gold, despite being disqualified from the previous year's World Championships for allegedly failing gender eligibility tests conducted by the then-governing body, the IBA. It was then suspended, however. and so the International Olympic Committee ran the boxing competition in Paris, and it allowed both fighters to compete, insisting that they'd met eligibility requirements. But that sparked a major storm over whether the IOC had put inclusion over fairness and safety.

The two fighters had been assigned female at birth. They'd always identified as women, but unverified suspicions that they may be DSD athletes may well have helped persuade world boxing and indeed world athletics that these tests have to be introduced to avoid any repeat of such a scenario in those sports. Now, gender tests aren't entirely new. It's important to say the IOC used very controversial visual inspections back in the 60s. There were concerns, obviously, about dignity and invasiveness.

They then switched to mandatory chromosome-based cheek swab tests, but they were also deemed unethical and were abolished before the Sydney Games in 2000. Now, supporters insist the scientific research undertaken since then has strengthened the argument over why these tests are needed and that now they can be conducted with confidentiality. Last year, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women called on the IOC to reintroduce sex testing for female athletes to protect them from injuries. The IOC under new president, Kirsty Coventry, is considering applying such a test across all sports. in fact, she set up a task force to consider it. So I think World Athletics move is very much part of a wider direction of travel in sport.

And indeed, the US President Donald Trump, said this month that sex testing in some form would be applied for women's competition at the LA Olympics in 2020. And so what does it mean if the result is positive? What happens? Well, it would mean that an athlete would be ineligible to compete in the female category in a world ranking competition in World Athletics events. the governing body says that if needed, a healthcare specialist would discuss the results with an athlete who tested positive, helping them understand any medical, physiological or

social implications. In terms of privacy, all results, World Athletics claim, will be held by the athlete unless they choose to share them. They say that any results will be uploaded on a secure encrypted platform, which can only be accessed and viewed by the governing body's medical manager. If an athlete contests the result, it'll be for them to take that up with the provider of the test to seek another test. And any appeal would only be made through the Court of Arbitration for sport. Are there any circumstances in which someone might receive a positive test result and still be able to compete in the female category? There is, yes. But only if the athlete has an established condition called complete androgen insensitivity or CIS.

And in that case, they may be able to qualify for an exemption. Interestingly, this was relevant, Anita, back in the 1980s, when a cheek swab was used to determine sex in athletes. And a Spanish hurdler called Maria Jose Martinez Patino was suspended, banned from competition in 1986 after failing that test. But then later examinations showed that while she did have X, Y, chromosomes, she also had CIS, meaning that her body never actually gained from the benefits or gain benefits from the increased testosterone that she had created by her genetic

makeup. So she was then reinstated. And I think that added to concerns from scientists. And it meant that the test was then dropped a few years later amid fears that female athletes in some cases are being punished for natural variations and because they didn't comply with conventional views of womanhood. Yeah. How much is this going to solve the ongoing debates then about who's allowed to compete in women's sports categories? Well, I think World Athletics would tell you that they certainly hope it does tackle some of the uncertainty and debate that surrounds this issue.

It says that the gene test is supported by many athletes and experts. And indeed, last year a number of academics did call on the IOC to bring in gene testing, claiming that it would treat all athletes equally and was preferable to the targeted testing. based on suspicion and bias, as it put it, that we'd seen previously. They argued that gene screening would provide a starting point for fair competition and prevent the kind of storm that engulfed the Paris Games over the boxing that I mentioned. But there will always be debate, Anita, I think, because some will always have ethical concerns. They'll argue that such tests are, by their very nature, potentially discriminatory, exclusionary,

if it results in athletes being banned from female competition, that it risks being an invasion of privacy and potentially violates the principle of equal access to sport. You know, one expert, Madeline Papp, a former Australian Olympian, who's now a sociologist at the University of Lausanne. She's raised concerns about the test potentially risking outing athletes, some of whom may not have known that they had a DSD. And there have been concerns over the level of care

that some athletes may receive in poorer countries. I'm sure we'll be talking about this at a later day as well. But for now, Dan Rowan, thank you so much. That's BBC Sports Editor and the World Athletics Championship start in Tokyo on the 13th of September. Now, last Friday to mark the stars of the Women's Rugby World Cup taking place in England.

I spoke to former England player turned fitness coached Cat Merchant about body image. Cat celebrates on Instagram being fit and strong, but it's come with its knockbacks as she received a huge amount of abuse online, most of which she either ignores or pokes fun at. She explained the impact this has had on her. The first time I honestly nearly quit social media

because I opened up and I was giving tips on actually how to grow your arms and someone had stitched it and was retching and saying why would any woman want to look like a man? And I was like, right, I say, I can't do this. I'm not putting myself out there anymore. I'm not going to do it. and Mike, my partner, he just went, no, do you know what, repost it, like own this, like go for it

and gave me the confidence to actually just go, right, fine. And now I do probably daily, like I'll have a couple of messages saying either I look like a man or that women shouldn't look like this. Women do it as well, though. You get women just go in, you should choose a different photo, your arms look big in that one, it's off-putting. Where does that come from? Why does that happen?

I think people get scared, of what women should look like and we should be small and to be honest when I retired from rugby I tried to get rid of my muscle because I didn't feel feminine I felt like oh no you're supposed to be curvy or you're supposed to be petite

you're not supposed to look strong and actually then I'm so glad I found lifting and it gave me so much confidence now and I walk around and I celebrate the fact I won't wear a dress unless it shows off my bitisems you know it's like I'm picking it on purpose and like when a you know I think now

rugby has shown this these incredible women are walking around from all the different nations and all you're looking at is one obviously what they could do on the pitch but you're like

oh my god her quads are amazing and now I think that you know in the business I do I do fitness coaching and I used to get women who wanted to do our programme and their goals were very much I want to drop two dress sizes

than it was more about I want to lose fat and there is nothing wrong with that goal if that's what somebody wants this is about women having the choice to do what they want but now I'm getting a lot more people ringing up and women saying, I just want to be strong.

I want to be able to play with my kids to join in with them. I want to be really independent. And the goal, the shift has really happened. And I, for one, every time I hear a woman talk about it and the confidence to take up space, for example, like I get people do the program who have really high-powered jobs and they've maybe been not as confident and they just stand taller because they're strong

and they feel mentally that that makes them stronger because physically they're strong as well. And yeah, I absolutely love it. The very impressive cat merchant there, and you can listen to that program and many of the other Women's Hour editions on BBC sounds. Now, Justine Lee is a knitware designer who's had a successful career designing for some of Britain's best-known fashion brands, including Laura, Ashley, White Stuff and Austin Reed. But in 2019, Justine picked up a book about fast fashion, discovering that fashion is one of the world's top 10 most polluting industries, and she decided to do something about it. So 30 years after her first degree, she took on a master's in textile design focusing on creating a model for sustainable knitware.

Her MA led to her to discover 62 pure or ancient breeds of sheep, which she whittled down to 12. She felt she could produce a yarn that was soft enough to knit with and wear. She's now co-written a book, The Wonder of Wool, and is doing innovative work to help protect the future of British rare breed sheep. Justine, welcome. Thank you. It's a delicious book.

Thank you. A knitwear designer for 30 years. What was it about working with wool in particular that you love so much? Well, I suppose I've always been in fairly tactile designer. I mean, I think that wool is just a wonder fibre as far as I'm concerned. It's got so much diversity. It's great to wear. It's long-lasting.

It's 100% biodegradable, mostly importantly. So it's always been a fibre that I'd like to work with. And you know you had been working in fact. fashion and very successfully for such a long time, and yet it was in 2019 where your mind was truly opened to the cost of fashion. Absolutely. I mean, I think I'd kind of worked for a long time in different areas in the fashion industry, in the Kashmir industry, high street, high fashion. But it was after reading the book that I actually really realized how damaging fashion was to the planet and the environmental damage. causing. So really I thought there must be a way to make more sustainable

netware. And that's what really brought me to British wool. Working on that ethos, you know, local fibre instead of flying everything around the world, we actually have something like 33 million sheep on the island. And, you know, there's so many, all these 62 different pure breeds. I mean, there's so much diversity and choice that it seemed like the natural fiber to work with. And so, we're What was and is happening to British wool generally? Well, it's difficult. At the moment, it's very hard for farmers.

I think, you know, it's been in the press a lot, how low the wool price is. They find it very difficult. So the emphasis is always on meat. But we do have the 62 purebrees, which have such amazing diversity. We brought some samples in. I have some swatches here.

Lovely, very tactile. This is just a few of the 62. When I was up doing my research, I actually, for my masters, I decided to knit every breed and that's how I discovered, you know, some of the great ones. I mean, I came from the Kashmir industry and I was really hoping I'd find a... Well, you wanted to find something just as soft. Yes, I was trying to find the kind of soft, the Kashmir of British sheep.

And were you successful? Nearly. I mean, I found some that are probably as soft as a kind of marino sort of standard, but it's so diverse. I mean, even if you find a breed that has lovely soft fleece, it varies from sheep to sheep because, you know, they're not genetically modified. They are all different.

So it's quite a hunt to find the very good ones. We've got to talk about the women that you work with and the women in this industry, the shepherds and the wool producers in this area of rare breed sheep. Why is this work, is this work mostly done by women? And if so, why? Well, I wouldn't say obviously shepherding is not just, women. But I think the emphasis on the wool tends to come from the women

chepherds, I think. Obviously, you know, it is so varied that I think women chequers notice this and want to do something with it. All the women that, all the companies that I buy my rare breed fleeces from are run by women. And they seem to... That's interesting. Yeah, they seem to understand the softness. They actually, they actually care, you know, they kind of feel the fleeces and go, oh, this is really soft, you know, try this one. How do you go about finding all 62 rare breeds? Well, each breed actually has its own sheep society, which is fantastic. So I can, you know, phone up if I want to, the Leicester Longwall, for instance, or the border Leicester, there is a sheep society. So I contact them

and then they tell me where the farmers are and that's how I get to get. I mean, I was surprised actually in London, how many we have in London City. In city farms? Yes, I mean, this is fantastic. When I was researching, there's the border Leicester, for instance, and then the lady from the Sheep Society phoned up and said, oh, there's something, Wonsworth. And I was like, you know, it was one of the kind of rarest breed,

well, Wonsworth, you know, it's just around the corner from me. So that was fantastic. And then I realised that there was Castlemilt Moritz in Spitalfields and sewage in mud chute. And it was just, you know, it was just great. because it meant that I didn't have to travel so far, but also opened my eyes to what I have on my dorset in London. So that was also great.

I mean, it's a beautiful coffee table book, and I love kind of reading about the history of things that you never knew, and that sheep are not, they're not native to Britain. No, well, they came in in the Neolithic time, so they've been here quite a little time. And we started off with the little brown native sheep, which is similar to our breed at the moment, sew-e. that's almost the same.

Then we had the Roman invasion who bought the lovely long wool, big, larger sheep. And then we had the Vikings that bought the blackface mountain. So this was the origins to all of our breeds. It's three, these three different types. And Romans really knew what they were doing.

The Romans bought the beautiful white long walls, which have this amazing luster. We call it luster, but it's where all the stories of the golden fleas came from. If you, I mean, the one I'm wearing is actually from the Leicester Longwall, which is part of from that line. And if the sun catches it, it kind of shimmers. You know, there's a kind of glint to it, which is amazing because it's all natural. If it's okay with you, Justin, I'm going to read out some of the messages that we've got.

Yes, of course. Our listeners. Yeah. Because we're just talking about fast fashion and how they feel about some of their items of clothing. On Sunday, I cut up a prized black satin pleated skirt, which I'd owned for 22 years to repeat. purpose into a cape for my five-year-old daughter to wear to a party. It hasn't fitted for five years, but I couldn't quite part with it. I feel relieved that it's now being treasured for Harry Potter dressing up. My 16-year-old self would have laughed hugely at this. Another one, Alison,

says, I knitted myself an Aaron sweater when I was a student in 1959 to 1963. Did it take that long? I suppose they could. The sweater having been worn by three teenage sons is now newly mended and carefully washed, just about to go off to Exeter University as my 18-year-old granddaughter Madeline loves it. She's lived in tropical countries all her life and will now face a Devon, autumn and winter in it, a timeless garment. That must make you feel joy here.

It shows the durability of wool. You know, you buy a synthetic jumper and it just looks pilly and starts losing shape quite quickly. But, you know, I have a wool jumper that I've had for... I knitted when I was at college, which was going back to 1987, and I still wear it. And actually my daughter now wears it as well. So, you know, wool does go on and on.

And it is a wonder fibre. As is obvious, some of these messages coming in, I have a jumper which I knitted 53 years ago from a pattern in Cosmopolitan magazine. I still wear it today as it's still so fashionable. You've got patterns in this in your book. That's right. There's ten patterns. And I've tried to showcase, I mean,

I whittled it down to about 12 breeds that I work with mostly, and I think they have the softest wool. So I've designed 10 special jumpers, which I think showcased the wool to their best. What about cost? Cost is, the problem is it's all about scale. If you're working with a rare breed cheap, you know, there's probably maybe only a few hundred of them.

Obviously, buying the wool, you've either got to hand-process the fleece or you have to take it to a mini-mill. That can make the yarn quite expensive. It's all about scale. If more people bought them, we could go through the system that exists, which is all set up for volume.

So if we can get it up to a better volume, the price of the wool of the finished wool comes down and therefore we can support some of the farmers by actually paying more for their wool from the sheep. And I've got a really basic question asking for a friend myself. Washing wool, I have been known to shrink. I know, I'm terrible. Just hand wash.

Either hand wash. I only use machines. I can't be bothered with hand washing. But is keeping that spin speed down. Keep the spin speed under full. 400 rotations per minute. And cold? And cold water. Just make sure it doesn't get too hot. It's beautiful. The book is gorgeous. The Wonder of Wall. Anitter's Guide to Pure Breed Sheep, Justine Lee and Jess Morency. And it's got a lovely sheep. Castle Milk Marit. And he's called Rollo.

And he lives in Spittal Fields Farm. Wonderful. Excellent level of detail. Justine, thank you. And thanks to all of you for taking part. I'm going to be back tomorrow with Belinda Carlisle. That is going to happen on Woman's Hour tomorrow morning. Join me from 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Mark Steele and for BBC Radio 4 from Shadow World. This is The People vs McDonald's. Hi boys and girls, how you doing today? It's Ronald MacDonald, your friend and boy, gosh, by golly, we're going to have a lot of fun today.

The longest running trial in English history. I just felt totally burnt out and I wasn't really able to carry on. A gardener and a former postman against a global fast food giant. Corporations should not just be able to suppress people with secret surveillance, spies and life-changing deception. You start thinking what is reality and what's not reality? Subscribe to the People versus McDonald's on BBC Sounds.