Woman's Hour - ABBA Voyage, rape disclosure, Katie Hickman, cost of living, women of colour & racism in the workplace

Episode Date: May 26, 2022

Amongst all his other difficulties, Boris Johnson has promised to improve the outcome for rape victims, saying he will fix the system. It was a pledge made after the murder of Sarah Everard. Today, long awaited guidelines on evidence in trials have been published which campaigners say will do just the opposite. They'll deter women from coming forward because police and prosecutors will STILL be allowed to ask for personal records like medical and therapy notes and even school reports. We discussed this last month - when our reporter Melanie Abbott heard that draft guidelines prepared by the Crown Prosecution Service were being overturned. She joins us to tell us the latest.Bravehearted is a new book that explores the extraordinary story of the women of the American ‘Wild West’ during the 19th century. Whether they were the hard-drinking hard-living poker players and prostitutes of the new boom towns, 'ordinary' wives and mothers walking two thousand miles across the prairies pulling their handcarts behind them, Chinese slave-brides working in laundries, or the Native American women displaced by the mass migration, all have one trait in common: extreme resilience and courage in the face of the unknown. We speak to author and historian, Katie Hickman about a period of history she believes has never been as well-documented by women as this. The Living Wage Foundation has said that women are being disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis as they are more likely to be in low paid work. Today the government is set to announce support, the Financial Times’ Clear Barrett joins Jessica on the programme to discuss how this could help you. One of the most successful pop groups in history is back! 40 years since their last concert, ABBA, are once again performing. Well almost… Agnetha, Freida, Benny and Björn spent 5 weeks performing their songs in motion capture suits so that their movements could be captured and turned into ABBA-TARS. The end result? A digital, 360-degree, immersive concert experience which feels like you’re watching ABBA, from the 1970s, perform in front of you. Producer Svana Gisla has kept the whole production on track for five years.A recent landmark report revealed 75% of women of colour have experienced racism at work, 27% having suffered racial slurs and 61% report changing themselves to fit in. Produced by gender equality organisation, the Fawcett Society, and the race equality think tank, the Runnymede Trust, ‘Broken Ladders’ explores and documents the experiences of 2,000 women of colour in workplaces across the UK, showing the harmful and entrenched racism that women of colour endure at every stage of their career journey. Zaimal Azad, senior campaigns officer at the Fawcett Society joins Jessica Creighton.Presenter: Jessica Creighton Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Vera Baird Reporter: Melanie Abbott Interviewed Guest: Katie Hickman Interviewed Guest: Claer Barrett Interviewed Guest: Svana Gisla Photo Credit: Baillie Walsh Interviewed Guest: Zaimal Azad

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Jessica Crichton. Welcome to the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. Welcome to the programme. Now, matter your age, you surely would have heard songs from one of the biggest pop groups in history, ABBA. It's been 40 years since they've performed live and they're set to make a comeback. So you could once again be listening to songs like this.

They really, they have so many hits, don't they? Now, the interesting thing about this ABBA comeback is it's all digital. The concert will be a 360 degree immersive experience featuring avatars of the group looking like their younger selves from the 70s. How incredible does that sound? It's taken five years to bring this concert to life and we'll be speaking to the producer who put it all together. Also this morning with so many people continuing to struggle with rising food, fuel and energy costs, we'll be discussing the government's expected plans to change their offer of support

for those who need it. Plus I expect that many of you will be getting in touch about this to share your thoughts after a report revealed that three quarters of women of colour have experienced racism in the workplace. Some women said they felt the need to change how they dressed, how they wore their hair and what subjects they discussed at work to help them fit in. Have you been through this? Maybe you're still going through it. It's not just racial slurs and stereotyping. They also spoke of the institutional barriers that stop them from progressing in their careers. If it's not too traumatic for you, please do get in touch with us. We're at BBC Women's Hour on social media. You can text us as well on 84844.

Text will be charged at your standard message rate. Or you can email us for our website as always. We'll be speaking to one of the co-authors of the report a little bit later. And you can be forgiven for not knowing about some of these incredible women we'll be discussing from one of the most documented periods in history, the Wild West. A new book shares the stories of an eclectic mix of women, hard-drinking poker players to sex workers to the wives and mothers

all making that long journey across the American West during the period of mass migration in the 19th century. Really looking forward to speaking to the author of that book a bit later in the programme. But first, after the murder of Sarah Everard, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he would improve the justice system for rape victims. But campaigners have claimed that new guidelines published today will stop rape victims from coming forward because police and prosecutors will still be allowed to ask for personal records like medical and therapy notes and even school reports. We discussed this last month, didn't we, when our reporter Menelie Abbott heard that draft guidelines

prepared by the Crown Prosecution Service were being overturned. So she's here to tell us the latest. Good morning to you, Menli. What's come out this morning then? Good morning. Two sets of guidance have been released today. One has come from the Attorney General's office and it covers broad rules about evidence disclosure. The other is from the Crown Prosecution Service and that covers accessing victims' therapy. Now both sets say that police and lawyers can demand anything deemed relevant and this is quite different from what the Crown Prosecution Service included in an earlier draft consultation on this. That consultation said that anything requested must pass what's called the strict disclosure test. And it is

much stricter because it means that any information asked for has to be capable of undermining the prosecution case or assisting the defence case. And there was also a court case back in 2004, which did set a precedent for that rule. But today, the Attorney General says that precedent isn't binding. Now, I think the important part of this is in the detail, isn't it, Melanie? What is it that can be deemed relevant? That's the key word here. Well, exactly right. And campaigners do say that the problem is that that's what is unclear. A key question is, does relevant include the credibility of the complainant, the credibility of the rape victim? And if it does, it can mean looking at something even as

trivial as, say, lying about taking a day off school 20 years ago. And over the years, there have been lots of really intrusive requests for rape victims records, asking for therapy notes, school records, university, social services records. And it's an intrusion that many women say just makes them feel further violated. It happened to this woman I spoke to. She's in her 20s. We're calling her Carol, but her words are spoken by an actor to protect her identity. The police asked for my doctor's records from the age of 16, even though this happened six years later. I was confused and asked why.

They said it was to see if there were any anomalies. Then they asked for my counselling records from university. I thought, why do they need that? There wasn't a reason, really. They said the defence might get them, so the police needed to see them. I thought they were asking for things which were completely irrelevant. I said no. But it wasn't easy to say no. They said the defence can get it and could use it against you.

I did feel violated. It didn't make any sense to me. My mental health has no relevance to what happened. It made me feel they thought I was a crazy character and had made all this up because I had issues before. I just thought well they won't believe me and might use it to drop the case. I didn't want everyone seeing my records. It just made me feel not believed. And her case was eventually dropped. Police told Cowell there wasn't enough forensic evidence and there seemed to be contradictions in her story. She says the whole experience has left her unable to trust the police.

Now, this morning, groups like Rape Crisis and End Violence Against Women have said that this new guidance will deter women from getting any therapy after being raped, knowing that their notes could then just be handed over. The Centre for Women's Justice has told me that this guidance will result in confusion, inconsistency and that problems with disproportionate invasive requests are likely to continue. Yeah, it does sound like a quite intrusive experience and presumably as well, trawling through all of these records will take a lot of time. It can do, yes, and last month the BBC reported that serious sexual offences are taking the longest time on record to go through Crown courts in England and Wales. Some are waiting three years for a trial to take place. It's also linked to the number of cases actually making it to court because many women do just abandon the process because they do feel

these intrusions are too much. Figures show that just 1.3% of cases resulted in a charge. Police in England and Wales recorded 63,136 rape offences in the year to September 2021. That's the highest recorded annual figure to date. But there were just 1,557 prosecutions. So what do the CPS and the Attorney General have to say? Well, both did decline the invitation to come onto the programme. The CPS says victims of rape and other crimes shouldn't delay receiving therapy for any reason connected with a police investigation or a prosecution, and requests for therapy notes should be specific and only sought when necessary. There shouldn't be unfocused requests to browse patients' therapy files.

Balancing a victim's right to privacy with a suspect's right to a fair trial is a sensitive issue, says the CPS, and that's why therapy notes should only be asked for where relevant. Now, as for the Attorney General's office, they sent us a statement and they told us there'll be rare but genuinely necessary cases where material is required in the interests of justice to stop invasive and disproportionate requests for victims' private information during investigations. We've imposed rigorous requirements for prosecutors and investigators in these guidelines, the statement says. And it goes on to say that this will ensure that third party material,

such as therapy notes and medical records, are only sought where appropriate, proportionate and balanced with the right to privacy. OK, thank you, Melanie, for bringing us up to date this morning. Now, Dame Vera Baird is the Victims Commissioner for England and Wales and joins me now. And Vera, you were speaking to the Crown Prosecution Service while they were drawing up this guidance. How do you feel about these latest guidelines? I mean, let me pay them the compliments of saying that the Attorney General and the CPS have all consulted victims and they have consulted me and they appeared to be taking notice and they are well aware of the complaints that they ask for too much private material from people that they're seen as you know digging into the past and looking for reasons not to prosecute and so they've put

strong words in all both of these documents that Melanie's talked about. However, I'm afraid although they were listening, they weren't hearing because as she said, the test, and there was a much narrower test as she described, which was in force from 2000 to 2013 in the Attorney General. And in the CPS, it's still in force now in several of its documents, including an earlier draft of their guidance today. So this is a narrower test, the disclosure test. The technicalities of it matter less, but they have put that test away and they have taken on a test which just says you can get it if it may be relevant. That is hugely wide

and very subjective. So the strong words may deter people from using it too randomly, which has obviously been done, but you need to limit, you need to regulate because, you know, the culture is quite worrying. The Attorney General herself said to the Telegraph a couple of days ago that there are too many tenuous requests for information that are wholly disproportionate. The whole of a person's medical nose is over-intrusive, materials given to the other side, and they're ambushed at court. And she doesn't want that to happen. Obviously, she doesn't think some of this stuff fits the maybe relevant test.

Do you feel these new guidelines make the experience worse for rape victims? They are going to not make the change. It is very poor, as your reporter has said, and as the complainant has also said. I think the public are probably really shocked to hear that when you report a rape, you are likely to be asked to give your medical records from birth, every bit of your school records,

social services, any counselling and any therapy over to the police who are entitled to look at it. And that has historically absolutely been what's happening, even in a case with, for instance, that I'm well aware of, where somebody was walking along, some chap started to chat to her, he pushed her into a field and raped her. She'd never met him before, but all of this material was required. If they want to stop this, it's a culture, I'm afraid. It has been going now for six or seven years. The police will seek all of this. If they don't, frankly, the CPS will drive pursuit of this private material. So that's become a culture of, you know, it's got in every case that has to stop. The only way to stop it is to tightly

regulate it. And these fine words are good, but opting for a wider test when there's a perfectly good narrow one that's been in play for years, seems the opposite of what the strong words are indicating their intention is. It's got to stop. The attorney general has said in the guidance that victim records should never be accessed just as a matter of course. And data protection laws should be applied to every privacy, to ensure privacy for victims, sorry. So they're trying to put these protections in place to ensure that this relevant test holds true. I agree that, as I've said, there are very strong, warm words up front. And from the top to those on the front line in policing and the CPS, I hope those strong words make a difference.

But frankly, the culture is, as I've set out, as your reporters set out, and as the lady you interviewed has set out, it just happens as a matter of course, and it has to be stopped. And words are not going to make the difference. If you voluntarily take on a wider test than that which has run this whole area of disclosure very satisfactorily for the last 20 years. Are there

other ways of doing this, Dame Vera? Are there other ways, are there other systems in place in different countries? There certainly are. So the way to stop this from happening, frankly, is legislation. So in Australia, where there is a very similar court system to ours, in every state except one, there is an absolute of the awful experience of somebody talking to their therapist fully about how appallingly they were treated and what they feel about it, only to have that handed to the person responsible for it. That is blocked out entirely. It's been the case now for 30 years and no one has complained. That must happen. And the government last year legislated to limit download of mobile phones, which was in a similar camp to this kind of material, was really done pretty wholesale. They've legislated to limit it. They tell us they they will look at limiting this access by law or in some other regulatory way. So and there is a need for some legal advice, because if you're faced with demands of this kind as a vulnerable rape victim with the police, you're not in a position to argue the law. You should have legal aid for a lawyer to be able to argue the technicalities and set out

exactly what is relevant and what is not. So three things for the victims bill, which the government has just announced, which intends to make things better for victims and is imperative to correct the mistakes that have been made in the guidance issued today. Yeah, of course, it's important to point out as well that to have a fair trial, which is an integral part of the legal system, all information and evidence needs to be seen, as has been stressed by the Attorney General Dame Vera Baird, Victims Commissioner for England and Wales. Thank you for coming on the programme this morning. Now, the Wild West is one of the most documented periods in history.

There are countless books, films and TV shows about this period in America between the 17th and 20th centuries. But something that's often missing are the stories of women during this time. Author and historian Katie Hickman has written a book called Bravehearted, which details the women of the Wild West during the period of mass migration in the 19th century. Delighted to say that Katie is with me in the studio. And Katie, you have such a varied mix of women who feature in this book, from hard drinking poker players to sex workers to indigenous American women as well. Just tell us why you were inspired to write this book. Good morning. Well, the strange thing about it is that it turned out to be not really the book that I was expecting to write. I was expecting to write a book which is, was quite a conventional depiction of what we all think the Wild West is. People like you describe the poker

players and the saloon bar ladies and so forth. And of course, they all have their part to play. But when I started researching it, I realised that there was actually a much deeper and a much more interesting story to be told at the same time, which is how these women actually got there in the first place. You know, we talk about the Wild West. If you see Wild West films, often it's a rather nebulous place. You're not actually terribly sure really where it is. And so when I looked into the sources, and it's very, very well documented amazingly by women, I realised that really the best stories, some of the most intense and dramatic stories were the ones of the actual journeys that they made.

So they would travel from what was then the frontier in Missouri, so about a third of the way across what is now America. And they would gather there with their wagon loads and their ox teams and their animals, their cattle and so forth, all at the same time, because you had to leave in May in order that the grass was long enough for your cattle to have food and for you not to get caught in the mountains in the snowy winter on the other end. And then you set off all at the same time on a nearly 2,500 long trek across the prairies, across the mountains and across the deserts to get to the other end. And some of the stories they tell are truly, truly mind-boggling. My goodness, that is far. You've actually done the journey yourself, haven't you? I did, I did.

Not quite in the same way, walking with cattle. Not quite in the same way, not in a wagon, not in a wagon train. Although I can tell you, I did it from, there's a place called Independence, Missouri, which was the kind of jumping off frontier town back in the mid 19th century. And I did a road trip, I drove all the way down what would have been the California Trail, there were two emigrants trails, one went across the plains and up to Oregon, and the other went down south to California. So I drove the trip to California. And I can tell you that even in an air conditioned car, it was quite, it was a tiring journey. It took me a month. But it took these women, it took them any way

where upwards of about six months. And most of them did it by walking. And what were they migrating for? What was the purpose? What was the cause? There were lots of different reasons. There was a big economic depression in the 1830s. So a lot of them were farmers who'd been ruined because of the depression. The prices of wheat and corn and so forth, you know, fell through. So they were looking for, you know, to start new lives, to get new land, they were looking for a new beginning. Some of them, quite a lot of them actually were Mormons. So there were people who were trying to escape religious persecution in the East.

And there was, you know, one woman who just went because she thought it was a honeymoon jaunt, you know, so there was everything in between. And of course, gold. When gold was discovered in California in 1848, it massively accelerated the rate at which these women went. And you've spoken about the women making this journey. I was struck by how vastly different what I had been taught or what I had seen as a child to the women in this book. They were very much active during this period. They were very, very active. They were very much, you know, active participants. And they were also, you know, one of the things that really struck me is how varied they were.

You know, we all have, and I certainly had, a kind of little house on the prairie sort of, you know, idea of, you know, mostly, in fact, all very, very white, white women in wagons with sun bonnets, you know, with their little children, you know, all dressed similarly. And in fact, it was incredibly ethnically diverse. So I have some amazing accounts by African-American women. Often they were enslaved women who were taken by their, the people who, you know, they were owned by, taken to California, which was supposedly a free state,

and Oregon, which was supposedly a free state, and then had to fight for their freedom once they got there because even though they were allegedly free, their owners didn't actually give them their freedom without quite a big struggle. So I've got some extraordinary stories of women who took their owners to court in order to gain their freedom. There are Mexican women, there are Chinese women,

and of course Native American women as well. I'm extremely proud. One of the things I'm most proud about in this book is the fact that I was able to source first-hand accounts by Native American women who act as a kind of mirror to this onslaught of emigration during the mid-19th century and showed what it was like from their point of view to have to cope with these strangers coming into their land and trying to take their land away. Still very relevant now. How difficult was it to get these first-hand accounts from women when I think traditionally that period has been seen through quite a male lens. Very male lens, yes. I mean, you know, anyone who is an aficionado of Western movies, as I was growing up, I'm sure lots of your listeners were growing up,

you know, it's an incredibly male, it's an, you know, the image that we have of it is very male. But these journeys, these emigrations journeys, which lasted for about a 30 year period in the middle of the 19th century, are incredibly well documented by women, you know, they knew they were making history. And what's so great about them is that, is that it wasn't just the middle class women who wrote down their experiences, you get everything from, you know, fancy ladies going on their honeymoon on their honeymoon trips to California because they think they're going to get rich quick, all the way down to women who were only just literate. life from when she was about 16 until she died. And she has this fantastic sort of stream of

consciousness. So there's almost no punctuation, very idiosyncratic spelling. And she wrote about exactly what life was like on the road. She's like sort of my real life, little house on the prairie person. You know, she described the preparations that they made. So not only did she stock her wagon and make the cover for her wagon, but she wove the material for the wagon. And not only that, she spun the thread from flax to make the thread to weave the cloth. You know, it was a big undertaking. It was about six months of really hard work. My goodness. And it couldn't have been done without the participation of these remarkable women. And you mentioned that you had firsthand accounts from indigenous American women as well. Tell us about what you learned. Well, there was, I mean, there are not very many, but the ones that there are are truly extraordinary.

So there was one particular woman called Josephine Wagoner, and she was part Irish, father was Irish. Her mother was a Hunkpapa, a member of the Lakota tribe, and she decided that the version of history that was being told was too white, and she was very anxious to get the elders of her tribe and talk to them and write down their memories and their recollections of what had happened during a period known as the Indian Wars, which is, you know, when things began to turn nasty and the US Army got involved and eventually did beat the Native Americans onto the reservations. And she was able to talk to very great leaders such as Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull was a member of her mother's tribe. And she wrote down all these accounts, including her own memories of when she was a child

living in the far west of the country before any whites came, when they lived in these amazing 10,000 strong villages of teepees and the buffalo was still very abundant. After about 1870, the 30 million buffalo that roamed the prairies became extinct because of the white depredations and hunting. And she was able to record all of that. And it's an amazing book. It was only published 70 years after she died. Oh, wow.

Because nobody thought that as a Native American woman, her testimony was valuable. You know, it was just women's stuff. And so no one would publish it. And it's only very recently, in about the last five years, I think, this, and it's a socking it and it and it was it's only very recently in about the last five years I think this and it's a socking great term I mean it's about 800 pages long and a treasure trove of indigenous stories and indigenous world view. That is extraordinary I'm wondering if women within this period have been documented in this way, as your book does, before? Is this new? I mean, I can't say that, you know, I'm not the first person to refer to many of the women. I talk about the Donner Party who were reduced to cannibalism in the Sierra Madre. You know,

there are a number of women in order to survive because they had to eat each other. They left too late. They didn't leave in May and they they had to eat each other. They left too late. They didn't leave in May and they got lost in the deserts around what's now Salt Lake City and snowed and they had to winter over and they ended up. This really was life or death. It really was life or death. You tend to get the individual stories, but what I've tried to do is underpin it so that you can see what the overall arc of the history of that period was, that they're in a context. And I think that that's what's different about my book is that it contains these really dramatic firsthand accounts, but you kind of know what's going on in the background as well. So many fascinating stories. Thank you for sharing that with us. Katie Hickman's book, Bravehearted, the dramatic story of women of the American West is out now. Thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you so much. Now to an issue that many of you are likely dealing with

at the moment, and that is the rising cost of fuel, food and energy. The Living Wage Foundation has said that women are being disproportionately impacted by the cost of of fuel, food and energy. The Living Wage Foundation has said that women are being disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis as they are more likely to be in low paid work. Support for those struggling is expected to be announced later today by the Chancellor, Ritchie Sunak.

So let's discuss this with Claire Barrett who is the Consumer Editor at the Financial Times. Good morning to you, Claire. So the government will be changing their plans to support those who need it. Is that right? Yes, we're all waiting, of course, with bated breath for what on earth

they're going to announce. It's been reported it's a 10 billion package of measures and that it will be directed at those on the lowest incomes. And of course, this research that's come out this morning really hits home how women are disproportionately suffering in this cost of living crisis. Almost a quarter of women in the UK living in relative poverty now. And that's, of course, before the huge hikes that we're going

to get in October when the energy price cap goes up. So although the research doesn't specify why this is happening to women, my educated guess would be that this has to do with the number of single parent families, women raising children on their own. And the cost of living crisis has had an absolutely outsized impact on them. I mean, on top of soaring bills, single parents, around 1.5 million of them who are in receipt of universal credit, have had a significant loss of income. They've lost that £20 uplift that was stopped, the temporary measure that came in in the pandemic. But also because benefits in April were only uprated by 3%, just over 3%, inflation, the cost of living is rising at three times that amount. So they didn't have enough to begin with. They've got even less now.

The solution of work more hours, which has been trotted out by various government ministers, of course, any single parent, any parent will tell you that just doesn't work economically because of the cost of childcare. And guess what? The cost of childcare is going up at a rising pace, whether you're a single parent or or in a relationship so there's even research from an excellent charity called gingerbread that those who did take on more hours single parents were more likely to end up in problem debt because of the pressures of managing

that high cost of child care just not adding up it almost just seems like that there's no way out so this money from the government is is it enough to support these families? Is it enough for people to survive this cost of living crisis? now pay later scheme that was designed to give families £200 as a loan that they would repay over five years in October as a one-off payment on their electricity bills. It's understood that that will now be doubled to £400 but families won't have to pay it back. Now whether everybody will get that or whether it will be directed just at the poorest we don't know. It's also rumoured that the warm home discount, this is a grant that you can apply for if you're on means tested benefits. At the moment, that's £150. But again, it's been talked about by ministers that perhaps it could be raised to as much as £500. So that would obviously help people on universal credit, also people claiming pensions benefit, like pension credit.

And then if you look at the numbers, that would help. We get to around 8 million. But Ofgem, the energy regulator, is warning that 12 million could be in fuel poverty by October, that's spending more than 10% of their disposable income on fuel. So obviously, it's not going to go all the way. The other thing that I'd stress is how will the government get this £10 billion worth of help to people we've already seen big problems with the existing council tax rebate that they've applied a lot of people don't even know about it in my local area and of course if you don't pay your council tax by direct debit if you're on a low income you're certainly not going to be beholden to a direct debit sweeping money out of your account without your control.

But if you don't pay by direct debit, you don't get the money automatically and you're having to wait. Councils up and down the land are having to devise systems, online forms for people to claim the money. So, yet again, the poorest aren't getting the money quickly when they need it. Will we see any more reforms around the cost of childcare, around insulating homes, longer term solutions for this crisis? I doubt it because this all seems to have been put together in a bit of a hurry. But we still have time before October to think about these very serious questions, as well as the immediate problem of how to help people pay their bills. Yeah, there are some serious questions. And because, Claire, this is one of your area of expertise. I mean, what is the answer? What more support could the government provide?

Or is it on businesses to provide more support as well? What do you think should be done? Well, I think in the short term, with so many people on deficit budgets, they simply can't make the sums add up if they're on low incomes. We need to be looking at how we manage that. Obviously, injecting cash to help people pay their bills, keep the wolf away from the door is one thing. But in the long term, you know, how are energy companies going to deal with people who get into problem debt and the nightmare of having to manage that? When we look at the amount of heat that is lost from our ageing housing stock in the UK, giving people cash to help their bills in mean in an emergency that might help this year but what if bills are still high next winter and the winter after that if we're investing money in better insulation and forcing landlords to insulate their their properties because if you rent you know what's the advantage to you if they're paying money to do that yourself when you could be moving on or kicked out within a few months or years that the long-term plans that we need to see applied,

it really feels at the moment like we're firefighting. We've known that bills are going up. We've known that this is a problem for a long time. People are really worried about how they're going to make ends meet. And it's great that we're seeing some action today. Look forward to reporting on all of the details later. Make it easy for people to get their hands on this money for those who really need it would be my plea.

Yeah, and as you've mentioned, it's difficult for people to be thinking about how they're going to pay their rent, how they're going to feed themselves and their children. And we know that from data that we've reported on the programme before that women are more likely to worry about the rising prices compared to men. So there's a mental health element here as well. Dee, is that your experience with the data that women are more worried about this than men?

I think there's a huge mental health burden on everyone at the moment. If you don't have enough money in the bank to make it to the end of the month, there are very, very well trodden connections between a lack of money and a rise in mental health problems. But when it comes to women, in particular, I've done a lot of work in the past looking at why women don't invest. Why don't more women save into pensions? Now, the short answer to that is that they have less money to spend on the luxury of saving and investing for the long term but nevertheless there's an awful lot of studies that have shown women even when they're in a partnership are more

likely to be the ones who are managing the household budget now whether that's a hangover from the days of when women were housewives and were given housekeeping money and it's just you know there's been a continuation of that into the modern age where both halves of the couple are working and trying to raise children but certainly in my own experience with friends and family women do seem to pick up the admin burden we're in charge of the family calendar if we're doing things that all of the personal finance experts tell you to do to save money like plan meals switch bills devise a budget stick to it look for low-cost activities download apps and vouchers you know all of these things to

do that you can try to have fun for less money there's still a time cost you know somebody is having to is having to do that and work and look after children. So I'm not surprised that the mental health burden is going up. I really hope that we do get some announcements today that will help to alleviate that and get cash through to those who need it most. Yeah, it's much needed, isn't it? We will be keeping an eye on what Richie Sunak has to say a bit later today. Claire Barrett, Consumer Editor at the Financial Times, thank you for joining the programme this morning. Thanks for having me. Now, how about some music this Thursday morning? Who doesn't love this lot?

One of the most successful pop groups in history. What better way to start your Thursday morning? It was pretty much an ABBA party in the studio whilst that was happening. Now, it's been 40 years since their last concert, but yes, ABBA are back. Well, almost. Agnita, Frida, Benny and Björn spent five weeks performing 20 of their songs in these special motion capture suits to capture all their movements so that they could be turned into avatars or abatars. You see what they've done there. Now, these avatars are part of a 360 degree immersive concert experience, which feels like you're watching ABBA live from the 70s perform right in front of you. It's taken producer Savannah Giesler and her team five years to bring this concert to life. Savannah joins us on the programme.

Very good morning to you, Savannah. I saw you dancing away just as I was there when we were listening to that ABBA music. Now, this sounds just as epic as it is complicated to produce. Just describe, though, what will people see exactly? What will they experience at this concert well essentially they'll experience a concert it's it's very simple um in terms of the experience on on a basic level but hopefully the most incredible concert you've ever been to and definitely an immersive concert in the best sense of the word um and a very very good night out out, we hope. If I mean, if they're going to be producing their hits and performing their hits, then most definitely.

So we're not seeing ABBA as they are now. We're seeing them as they were in their younger days in the 70s. Yes, we are. We picked a year from pretty much from random 1979. I think partly because some people liked their hair in that year. I'm not talking about the girls. And it just felt like a good year to land on. So that's where we landed. But the concert is very much in the now.

We're not creating a retrospective concert or a nostalgic concert. It's very much ABBA 2022. Ah, what do you mean by that? Because the songs they will be performing are their hits from the 70s, from the 80s, right? Yeah, the music is obviously nostalgic, but that's the only nostalgic bit. We've created this concert with ABBA themselves.

They're very, very much involved. And the fun of it for them was to go back on stage in the now using modern technology, light systems, audio systems, and kind of have a little bit of a refresh. But they are 75. So they weren't quite prepared to step on stage themselves. Hence the technology of digitizing them. That's fair enough. That's fair enough. I think they've earned a bit of a rest, haven't they? I mean, talk to me about the technology of digitizing them. That's fair enough. That's fair enough. I think they've earned a bit of a rest, haven't they? I mean, talk to me about the technology, because they spent five weeks performing their songs

day after day after day. Is that right? So you could capture their voices, their movement and everything. Absolutely. They're proper professionals, that lot, even at their age. So they got under the very, very bright lights

of a motion capture studio with hundreds of cameras pointing at them wearing skin tight motion capture suits with dots on their faces and helmets on their heads. And they stood there, bless them every day, eight hours a day for five weeks, performing their hearts out whilst we captured every single bit of them and sort of extracted their soul, if you like. That is hardcore. Now, of course, ABBA were a phenomenon in their day. They produced hit after hit. They sold millions of records. They topped the charts. But did you ever think, oh, no, what if they still don't have that mojo?

What if they don't have that pizzazz that they had back in the 70s strangely no the weirdest thing about this entire mad journey and then everything about this show is utter madness is no one ever stopped and said are we sure we need to be doing this is this really a good idea we just kept going and and they delivered and in the process of making this which has taken five years they they came up with a new album. So the album was the icing on the cake, if you like. And they delivered even then. New album, new songs.

Yes, the album came out in November last year with new songs and some of which are in the concert, of course. Now, I'm not sure if this is possible really to ever get sick of an ABBA song but because they had to perform the songs over and over again for weeks and weeks on end you must know every single syllable. Were you an ABBA fan before you worked with them? Because I'm sure you are now

I'm very much an ABBA fan now and I probably was back then. I'm Icelandic so it was in my cereal if you like I'm raised with it but no was in my cereal, if you like. I'm raised with it. But no, the songs, they don't grate on me or anybody else. That's the magic of that songwriting. It's very, very joyful.

It's very emotional. And weirdly, we're not tired of it yet. Yeah. I mean, I was dancing along when I heard the music. I saw. Yeah, you saw. Great. Good.

Not embarrassing at all. Because their songs often feel timeless. Even now, they sound relevant. What were they like to work with? You must have heard so many stories from them about their time in the industry. Ah, they're wonderful. They're absolutely wonderful people.

And in my years... Oh, what a shame. We were just getting into it then. I think she was going to tell us something really exciting about what ABBA was saying to her and how they were performing during that time. But I think we've lost Savannah, actually, which is such a shame. It was really interesting. As I said at the top of that piece, I was dancing away to all these other songs. Hopefully we can get Savannah back a bit later in the programme.

And we'll move on to our next item before we try and get her back. And hopefully we're about to speak to Savannah Giesler a bit later. Now, how many of you have experienced racism at work? It could be subtle or aggressive slurs or banter. If you have, then you're not alone. A recent report revealed that 75% of women of colour have experienced racism at work. Two thirds say they often change themselves or their appearance to fit in. The report comes from equality charity, the Fawcett Society and race equality think tank, the Runnymede Trust. Zaymal Azad is one of the co-authors of the report and senior campaigns officer at the Fawcett Society and joins us now. Now I'd like to point out as well to all of our listeners that some of this may be triggering what we're about to discuss. So I'd just like to warn you before we get into it.

But Zeymal, good morning to you. I have to repeat those figures because they're quite astonishing. 75% of women of colour have experienced racism at work. 61% changed themselves to fit in. How surprised are you? Morning. Yeah, I think the sad part is that none of this is really surprising to women of colour, is think just says that we really need some urgent action taken both by government and employers to start to make progress on this.

Now, of course, racism comes in many forms. So what are we talking about? What were these women experiencing? What sort of behaviours? Because it's not just words, is it? No, it isn't. And it's a whole range of things. So women spoke to us about what often people call jokes or banter, which very much isn't that about people's cultural backgrounds or racial backgrounds. And statements of surprise at their abilities, like things like, oh, you speak really good English. I've had that. Yeah, I've had that too. So that's really common. But also being told you're not like other people from your group. So you're not as aggressive as other black women is something that we heard. Or, you know, you're very progressive for a Muslim woman and things like that.

And being told that you're not like other people. We also had women talk to us about their religious or cultural where being banned. So actually banned from the workplace, which isn't, you know, that's actual discrimination, which, so a whole range of behaviours. And then also those kind of structural barriers that are put in place, which start before women of colour even enter the workplace. Yeah, I mean, the report is called Broken Ladders, isn't it? Which is very apt because as you say there are institutional barriers that prevent women from climbing the career ladder so what did you were you able to speak to women and get specific examples about what they were experiencing there yeah absolutely

so again starting even before they enter the workplace women talk to us about the career advice they were being given at school and at university and being told to lower their ambitions. So we're often told that women of colour lack aspiration. Our research very much shows that is not the case. The issue is that they're being told to be less ambitious. They're being told not to go for the jobs that they want to go for, being told not to go for promotions. So things like not being given development opportunities

that are given to other people in the workplace, things like being asked salary history questions, that's an institutional barrier that holds women of colour and people of colour back, perpetuates the gender and ethnicity pay gap, not being given flexible work options, things like there not being explicit promotion routes in an organisation. So how do

you know what you have to do to be promoted if that's not something that's transparent and clear? And Women of Colour spoke to us about that constant thinking that they're having to do, thinking about, am I good enough? Am I working hard enough? What exactly do I need to do to get that promotion when somebody who's doing the same work as me has managed to do it? And that transparency is really important within that. And none of that goes away when women do enter the more senior management positions. So those women who have managed to do that, they spoke to us as well about the barriers they experience at that table. So when you are at the top table, having to be an ambassador for your entire community and feeling that burden, but also being told you're the troublemaker if you talk about it too much. So

if you're talking about diversity and inclusion initiatives, or you're trying to speak up for other women of color, and having to be really careful about how you do that and the thinking that involves. And then when it comes to reporting racism as well, so those processes not being in place, institutions don't have those structures in place to be able to provide that support. Yeah, yeah. I often wonder whether organisations should be doing more to support these women.

And so much of what's in this report resonates with me personally as a black woman. And I've definitely felt the need to assimilate to hold parts of myself back from the workplace because they might be deemed unpalatable to the racial majority and that is racism at work essentially in various jobs and it can come both from you know in unconsciously and and insid, but also it can be quite blatant. What can organisations do to support their colleagues and their employees who are women of colour? So essentially, it's about workplace culture, isn't it? What the report is telling us is that workplace cultures are centring a particular way of being.

And they're saying that's how you need to be. So workplace cultures need to change. And we're asking all employers to have effective evidence-led anti-racism action plans, which are based on their own organization status. So that look at, you know, what the ethnicity pay gap in the organization is, for example. And they should include things like having clear reporting mechanisms for when people experience racism, having the right support in place, having things like, you know, being able to report it to somebody who's not your manager, because sometimes that's the problem. And I think what's really important within all of that is that the responsibility needs to not lie with women of colour. You know, tackling racism needs to be the job of those institutions and

those employers, because what our research is very clearly showing is that women of colour are already carrying all of that burden. So that responsibility needs to lie with that institution. And there are lots of other, you know, a lot of these actions are really simple, actually, for employers to take. They're not costly, things like advertising salary bans, things like not asking salary history questions, having clear promotion rules, having training for managers. Again, a really simple one. Managers should be provided with the support to ensure equitable promotion outcomes for everybody. And also things like any trainings, anti-racism training, but training that's meaningful and training that's linked to clear objectives and all of the monitoring of these plans should be reported on at senior management level. So it needs to be a priority for organisations. How much of this is unconscious when it comes to racism in the workplace or do people know that they're doing it? Yeah, that's a good question, isn't it?

I think it's a mix. I think it is a mix. But we have to be careful not to put all of that, to excuse all of it as unconscious bias, because not all of this is unconscious. Because I think people would listen to this discussion and say, well, I'm not racist. I've never said anything racist, but don't necessarily realize sometimes the impact of what they're saying, particularly to women of colour. Yeah, absolutely. And so a quarter of the women we spoke to said they'd experienced racial slurs. That is not unconscious. You know, racial slurs are racial slurs, and you

know that. But then when people are saying things like, you know, some of the more institutional stuff, or I think it is, it all comes from the assumptions we have. A lot of these things do come from that, which is why we need that training, which is why we need that cultural change. And we need to be having these conversations in the workplace. And one of our recommendations is that leaders need to take have a bigger role in having those conversations, and not shy away from these difficult conversations and really listen to women of colour. So one of the things we've proposed is that organisations should have stay interviews. So as opposed to exit interviews to try gain that insight from women of colour about what their experiences are in the workplace so that they're not losing that talent.

And they're able to retain those, you know, really talented women of colour who are doing great work. And it's really good for those businesses to retain them and create an environment in which they can thrive. Now, the report does differentiate between the different groups within the term women of colour. We'll come to that in just a second. But some people might have a problem with the term women of colour because it suggests that we're all just one homogenous mass. What do you say to that? Yeah, the issue of language is really important because there isn't one term that everybody agrees on. So we've chosen to use women of colour because when we spoke to women, that was the one that most women related to. But breaking down those experiences is really important. And one of the unique things about this research is that we've really looked at what those experiences are for individual groups of women,

both from ethnic minority backgrounds, but also religion. Yeah. And there were differences. There were huge differences. And that's really important because even though there's a lot of commonality in our experiences, and you know, racism is the root of that. But the way those experiences manifest is based on different racial tropes. So for example, Muslim women talked to us about the assumption that they should be submissive, and how when they're not that, that's perceived as a problem. But women from, you know, black women from African heritage or Caribbean heritage told us about which, you know, what women of African heritage or Caribbean heritage

told us about what you were referring to, having to tone yourself down, water yourself down, to really try to get away from that idea of being perceived as aggressive. And that's just sad, isn't it? That people have to be less of themselves. There's just something deeply sad about that. It is, and it means all these organisations are not getting the most from their employees, which you're right, is incredibly sad. Zeymal, thank you very much for coming on the programme

this morning. Zeymal Azad there is one of the co-authors of that race report and senior campaigns officer at the Fawcett Society. Now, fingers crossed, we can head back to producer Savannah Giesler, who I was talking to about ABBA and their comeback concert. I say comeback concert. It's more of an immersive 360-degree experience. Can you hear me okay, Savannah? I can. Isn't it ironic that I'm talking about technology

and mine fails me spectacularly? Yes, that's not a good omen for your concert, which opens tomorrow, I believe. But we were talking about the fact that you were working with ABBA, one of the greatest pop groups in history. They must have had so many stories because they've been in the industry for decades. They do. They have a lot to share and a lot to tell. And it's really lovely to see them come back together now to create more memories together because they, of course, thought this was over many, many, many years ago, 40 years ago, in fact. So the stories are going to continue assembling, which is wonderful. And I remember that I saw an avatar slash hologram of a hip hop artist called Tupac when he performed at Coachella Festival. That was back in 2012. But, you know, is this the future now?

Are we going to be seeing more types of concerts like this going forward? Well, possibly. The holograms are a slightly different technology than we use. We're doing motion capture, digital people, and the holograms is sort of, the holograms is an old technology, is over 100 years old for Pepper's Ghost. But yes, technology is advancing very, very, very quickly.

Rendering is taking quicker and it's getting lighter on its feet every day that passes by. So the technology itself isn't new, but the use of it is getting a lot easier. Yes. So hopefully we've inspired some people to come with us. Brilliant. And I know that you've been in the music industry since the mid-90s. So I have to ask you about someone, one of the cultural icons of a generation that you've worked with, Beyonce, because you worked on her On The Run tour. You've got 20 seconds to tell me about that experience with Beyonce.

The ultimate professional. It's very easy. There's no one that works harder. There is no one with more ambition. She's not just a songwriter and a singer. She's a phenomenal producer and she doesn't get enough credit for what she does in the studio, I think, as many women don't. So 10 out of 10, if not more. Brilliant. Savannah, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you. Performances of Abba Voyage start tomorrow at a specially built venue on the Olympic Park in East London. And tickets are available online. That's it from Woman's Hour this morning. Speak to you soon.

And that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Hi, I'm Andy Oliver, and I'd like to tell you all about my Radio 4 series, One Dish. It's all about why you love that one dish, the one that you could eat over and over again without ever getting tired of it. Each week week a very special guest will bring their favourite food to my table and we'll be unpacking the history of it and food psychologist Kimberly Wilson is on hand to talk us through the science bit. What food reminds you of your child? What's your favourite place to go for dinner? What do you have for Sunday lunch? What's your favourite dessert? Do you say plantain or plantain? What food would you take with you to a desert island?

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What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.