Woman's Hour - Abortion and the Republic of Ireland, Meike Ziervogel, Game of Thrones Superfans

Episode Date: April 15, 2019

Nearly a year ago the Republic of Ireland voted to change the law on abortion in a referendum. The majority voted to make it more available and so in January abortion became legal up to 12 weeks into a pregnancy. But Woman’s Hour has found out that some women are still travelling to England for an abortion despite being eligible to get one back home. Siobhann Tighe reports on the new abortion lawThe Shatila Refugee camp in the south of Beirut was originally built in 1949 to house Palestinian refugees. Following the outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011 tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have fled to Lebanon many of them also taking refuge in the Shatila Camp. Jane speaks to publisher and author Meike Ziervogel about the work she is doing with 100 Syrian refugee women who have set-up The Shatila Studio, a bespoke needlework business that is attracting orders from outside the camp. What is life like for these women in a place they cannot leave, where no police or ambulance will enter, where killings are frequent - and yet where life goes on and the women save every penny to send their children to school. Meike also describes why her own family history of war and displacement have taken her to Shatila and are the inspiration for her latest novel “Flotsam”The final season of Game of Thrones begins tonight for viewers in the UK. As this legendary series comes to an end, Superfans describe what they love about it, what appeals to the female fans and how they’ll survive without it.A new film and photo exhibition aims to challenge the stereotypes around black, single mothers. Jane speaks to co-creator Ebun Sanusi and mothers Bola Tajudeen and Miranda Armstrong. Presenter: Jane Garvey Produce: Caroline DonneReporter: Siobhann Tighe Interviewed guest: Meike Ziervogel Interviewed guest: Ebun Sanusi Interviewed guest: Bola Tajudeen Interviewed guest: Miranda Armstrong

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme. Peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hi, this is Jane Garvey. It's the Women's Hour podcast from Monday 15th April 2019. Today, single black women and motherhood. Game of Thrones is back. It's the final season. There's a conversation about it, but there won't be any spoilers. All we know and all I'm prepared to tell you is that Cersei was promised elephants, but she didn't be any spoilers. All we know and all I'm prepared to tell you is that Cersei was promised elephants, but she didn't get them. Why do some women love this series so much,

when in fact there is plenty that's pretty negative about the depiction of women in Game of Thrones? And we will read out some of your emails on that very subject at the end of the podcast today. But nearly a year ago, Ireland voted to change its abortion laws. And in January, abortion became legal up to 12 weeks into pregnancy. The Irish Prime Minister said the referendum had reflected what he called a quiet revolution. He said there'd be no more lonely journeys across the Irish Sea. But actually, Woman's Hour has found out that some Irish women who could now have a legal abortion at home are still coming to England. Siobhan Tai reports from the Republic of Ireland. Good morning, the Irish Family Planning, how can I help you?

Just off O'Connell Street, one of the most famous and historic streets in central Dublin, there's a family planning clinic which has been offering abortions since it became legal in January. That's nearly four months ago now. OK, just give me the date you're in. A medical abortion, which means taking tablets, is offered up to nine weeks. If you're between nine weeks and 12, you're referred to a hospital.

Yeah, but I can't give you... I think just with time, people just get more used to how things are and I think it will definitely improve. And I've kind of noticed the improvement as the weeks have gone. Rosemary Keenan is one of the doctors here. What kind of improvements have you noticed? Where has it got kind of smoother? The hospital doctors are more aware of what services they're providing.

So if I have a query, if I call a particular hospital, they'll say, no, you just contact this person. This person's dedicated abortion midwife or doctor. So call that person, she'll direct you exactly where to go. With regard to ultrasound referrals as well, initially we kind of didn't really know how we were supposed to do that. Emails or giving the patient the letter to tell the patient to call. So it's a lot more smoother now. We know we email, they'll get a phone call in a day or two, that kind of way. This is all very new and you've made a choice to kind of be involved

in giving this kind of care. What does it mean to you to be able to provide it well I remember like there was just one lady and um she said to me thank you so much and um like for doing this for me and she said like I actually thought that you were actually going to try and convince you not to go through with it I was like oh gosh I didn't realize you think that like I was surprised that she thought that coming here you know but um I was like just delighted like I want to be a doctor because I want this is so cliche I want to help people but I do want to help people like and if this helps people like that particular person she was going through a rough time for her if she really needed to to have an abortion you know and if that's what's best for her then that's what's best for

her um definitely my view on abortion has definitely changed. We got training from the World Health Organisation and I think that's changed my view on abortion. Obviously, I think I'm influenced by how I was brought up. My dad's very Catholic, but things have changed and I think my view has changed. As well as clinics like Rosemary's, GPs can provide abortions, but they're not obliged to.

Some may opt out because they simply don't agree with it. And they would be part of the 34% who voted not to change the law on abortion in last year's referendum. My name is Christina Nidavi. I'm from County Mayo and I'm 22 years old and I'm a primary education student. You would describe yourself as a pro-lifer. Yes. So you're someone who voted no to the referendum. What are you feeling at the moment because you're on the losing side? I suppose it was initially it was there's a lot of disappointment there when we heard that the Eighth Amendment had been repealed because we felt that it was such a a great thing now that you know the dust has settled i'd be of the opinion that a woman always deserves better than abortion i know that's kind of like a slogan that we have

but honestly i do think that um if our government did support women genuinely did provide all the options and supports there that they should have, that there would be no need for abortion. I mean, where were the committees on adoption laws? Where were the committees on supports for women? Abortion is no less emotional or controversial now that it's legal in Ireland. And because not all GPs agree with it,

and it's up to them whether they provide it or not, you might live in a place where it's hard to get and that's one of the reasons why some women are still choosing to travel to England. Alison Spillane is Policy Officer at the Irish Family Planning Association. We definitely know from providers such as British Pregnancy Advisory Service that women have been giving Republic of Ireland addresses in their clinics. The numbers have decreased, but definitely some women are still travelling. Over the years, three organisations have helped Irish women

get access to abortion in England. They're Mary Stopes, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service and the National Unplanned Pregnancy Advisory Service. Their combined figures show that 126 women have travelled here between this January and this March, even though they're under 12 weeks and could have an abortion at home. The figure is dropping as each month goes by, and women over 12 weeks, they continue to travel here too. The British Pregnancy Advisory Service says that Irish women told them they were here because it was still too complicated back

home especially at the beginning in January and it was taking too long. This was the easier option. Alison Spillane from the Irish Family Planning Association again. Is there still a taboo around it, do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think unfortunately abortion stigma exists everywhere. I think what we've had in Ireland is a really valuable public conversation. And I think it was really important that it centred around women's health and women's experiences of unintended and crisis pregnancy. So a lot of that conversation helped to destigmatize abortion but certainly stigma exists and it's unfortunate that that some of the provisions in the new law perpetuate that

stigma what do you mean by that um i think the law while it does substantially broaden access it unfortunately is framed in terms of criminal provisions rather than women's right to access health care and it includes um is that just your take on it though to be fair um no i mean there is no guarantee to access care in the law you know we didn't follow the model of other recently reformed laws such as in spain and south africa where there is a guarantee to access care in the text of the law. What we have is a law that still maintains abortion as a criminal offence but there are exceptions to it so that's the frame of the Irish abortion law. We have provisions for example about

notifications so doctors are required to notify the Minister for Health about every single termination of pregnancy. That does not happen in any other area of healthcare. There's no identifying information about the individual woman, but certainly for the individual doctor, they have to provide their medical council registration number, the ground under which they provided the termination, the date and the county of residence of the woman. But that's the only information about the woman. But it's understandable, though, that authorities would want to collect data about a new law? Oh certainly and we definitely need data for good to inform service delivery going forward but notifying the Minister for Health is not the way to collect that data. There are

service delivery statistics that are collected routinely. We should be monitoring and analysing them. We should not be sending notifications to the Minister for Health about every abortion. Yeah we are running low on the cards for the care packages. Over in Galway, a group meet up regularly in a cafe to make up parcels for women who've had an abortion or are just about to. I just sent one down to a woman who was travelling to England. Nothing expensive or medical is in the packages. It's just a way of supporting women and letting them know they're not alone. They include thick pads for bleeding, a hot water bottle to help with tummy cramps, comfy socks, some chocolate and messages of support. Maybe we should keep putting them up on social media then if people are answering to that request.

I suppose there's still stigma around abortion so we wanted um anyone who was uh having one to to feel like there's people out there that are looking after them that there's no stigma not to feel worried about it there's a lot of i suppose negative attitude towards it in ireland for a very very long time so it's going to be a long time before that even changes so this this is our way of saying it's fine, it's okay, and I hope you feel better. Just recently we had a woman tell us that she emailed us asking, it was only maybe about a week ago, so she's heading over to England I think this week, was she saying?

Yeah. And she's probably, there's many reasons why people are travelling. She might have fallen out of the time limit. We're not sure why she's travelling, but we just know that she is. A lot of hospitals, only nine hospitals, provide surgical abortions in Ireland at the moment anyways. So it's kind of, we're trying to see how it plays out. It's not very definitive, it's kind of learning as we go.

A lot of people aren't trained fully for it yet, so it's interesting to see how that will develop. One of the most contentious elements of the new law is the three-day waiting period. If you go for an abortion, you must wait three days before getting it. This means that some women risk going over the 12-week threshold, and there's no room for manoeuvre on this. It's a strict cut-off point.

For some, that means the only option is doing what Irish women have been doing for decades, and that's travelling to England. Well, that report from Siobhan Tai in the Republic of Ireland. And of course, we must make clear that you still can't get an abortion in Northern Ireland. Just to mention that Women's Hour is coming live from Dublin next month. Really excited about this. It's Tuesday, May the 7th. That's the day after the bank holiday. Four prominent women from Ireland will discuss abortion provision. We'll talk about divorce, the incredible success of Irish women's writing at the moment, and the unique sentence in the Irish constitution, which is about a woman's place in the home. So loads on the agenda,

really looking forward to it. And you can be there. We've got live music as well in that show. There are tickets available now. We'll make the information available to you a little bit later this week, we hope. But that programme live from Dublin on Tuesday, May the 7th, the day after the bank holiday. Now let's have the music from Game of Thrones. Here we go. It's keeping going, I think. It's very stirring stuff. Flaming torches, mythical beasts, facial hair, snow. I always think it's snowing there, isn't it? Winter, what is it they say?

Winter is... Winter is coming. Oh, winter is here now. Oh, winter's here now. Oh, winter's here now. Okay. That's the voice of a fan, Danielle Ward, comedian, television writer. Welcome, Danielle. Thanks for having me. We've also got Georgia Humphrey in our studio in Cambridge. She's a cosplayer and she works when she can at Game of Thrones conventions. Georgia, welcome. Good morning. Nice to be here. Hi. And joining us on the phone, I think we've got Ruthie Websdale. Hi, Ruthie. Hiya.

Paid up fan as well. So we'll get all their opinions in a moment. First of all, if you don't know a thing about Game of Thrones, it's based on a series of novels by a man

called George R.R. Martin. They're called A Song of Ice and Fire and it's the final series. It's series eight. Simulcast in the UK kicked off last night at two o'clock

in the morning, in fact. It's now available for UK viewers on Now TV and on Sky Atlantic from 9 o'clock tonight. Right, that's enough of a plug for Game of Thrones although we'll plough on a little bit in that vein. So, Danielle, sell it to me. Why would you bother? Game of Thrones is like House of Cards

only with more naked people and some dragons. It's a great political drama because i i was adamant i wasn't going to like game of thrones when it first started because i don't like fantasy and my husband said you'll really enjoy it and we sat down and watched the first series no fantasy in it first series is just politics and people killing each other and some naked ladies um and you get drawn into this world only naked ladies there are i know there's lots of naked men as well.

But then, you know, that's just one element of it. There's very few naked people in the later series. It all focuses on politics. By the way, there will be no spoilers in this conversation. You, I think, would describe yourself, Danielle, as a relatively circumspect fan. Game of Thrones has its place in your cultural life. I love Game of Thrones. I consider myself a fan. I couldn't tell you what Mark Gatiss' character's called. I know he runs the bank. I'm that sort of fan. I know the big names,

I know the big key players. I have my expectations for the finale. But you know, I don't, the nearest I get to cosplaying is spending time naked. And then I'm like many of the women in the first series of Game of Thrones. Georgia um I think you are um more of a devotee in the nicest possible way outline the importance of the female characters and why we should in fact admire them. Well I mean I've had quite a complicated relationship um with the show because of the representation of female characters because it is very good in certain respects. You have these sort of amazing warrior women going around killing people, all that good stuff.

But for a long time, the show did also have a lot of issues with sexual violence, which meant that I was very critical of it for quite a few seasons. But do you think that's something that the show has kind of learned from because there was a lot of outcry, particularly from female fans, about just how awful it got in the middle. Well, I haven't read the books either. So I mean, are these shows a faithful adaptation of the novels, Georgia?

To a certain degree, yes. It's difficult to say because the show has at this point moved past where the books are at. Georgia R. Martin is yet to bring out the latest one. So we obviously don't know how faithful they are at. George R.R. Martin is yet to bring out the latest one. So we obviously don't know how faithful they are now. But that was actually the thing that was the cause of quite a lot of discontent for fans, was the fact that there was sexual violence being added to the show that didn't exist in the books,

where scenes where a sexual encounter was consensual in the book was made non-consensual in the show, which is an issue. Yeah, well, to put it mildly. And also this idea of, I think the phrase sex position was coined for some of this stuff where a relatively important part of plot, the plot would be revealed in a brothel for absolutely no good reason. Any concern with that, Georgia? Yes, I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about whether or not

the nudity especially became sort of gratuitous i know that amelia clark had it written into her contract at one point that she is one of the actors yeah yes um he plays a denarius targaryen she had it written into her contract that she wasn't going to do any more nude scenes um because it just got to a point where it was a bit silly i think that yeah you say, all these plot points would be given, people invading, whatever, and there'd just be a naked woman for no real reason. Ruthie, was there ever a point when you lost faith with

Game of Thrones because of its attitude to women? Well, I came to the show having read the books. I guess I kind of knew what I was getting myself in for. There were some points where I thought, is this really necessary? Especially with a lot of as mentioned the background brothel scenes you did think does this really need to be happening here

but at the same time i think it's important to remember that this is supposed to be set in the dark ages where you know women did have far less rights and that does you know obviously have a lot of impact on the show and what is happening to women in it. The fact that then the women characters, though, you've got some tremendously strong women, and you do have a really nice variety. Also, partly in ages, what I like about it, it isn't just the young, desirable women who are doing good things. You've had quite a lot of older women

who have proven to be real masterminds in the game, and that, I think, is very nice. And it's been important to show that despite the awful things that have happened to a lot of the female characters, they have, in general, had power to change their fate and to change where they're going. So when you dress up and do cosplay, who do you dress up as, Ruthie? I've been Melisandre a couple of times.

She's one of the Red Priestesses. And I had a lot of fun. I'm always very keen to make characters who are magic users. I like ones who are a bit mysterious and who you're not sure exactly what they're up to. I've also cosplayed as one of the Dothraki handmaidens. The Dothraki are a kind of tribal people. They follow Daenerys Targaryen for quite a lot of the series. And I had a lot of fun dressing up as one of those.

I got to meet Jason Momoa, who plays Khal Drogo, well-dressed up as a Dothraki handmaiden. So that was very cool for me. Life doesn't get any better than that. It's like me getting into Ikea before anybody else. It's absolutely fantastic. So, Georgia, I gather that some of your cosplay in the past has, well, you've had to make a few changes, haven't you? Because you were being somebody.

Yes. So when I first started Game of Thrones cosplay, I worked for Sky and for HBO briefly as doing sort of promotional events. And I cosplayed Ygritte, Jon Snow's girlfriend. And she's been dead in the show for quite a few seasons now, so she's less popular. So now that I'm working for ThronesCon, I have to do something a little bit more relevant. ThronesCon? It's a convention that's Game of Thrones specific in Manchester.

It's on the 18th of August, if anyone would like to buy tickets. And now I do Yara Greyjoy instead because she's still alive, hopefully. Yes, well, that's it. I have read the theory that at the end of this series, the arc will actually end with female supremacy.

That is a theory, Danielle. Do you think it's likely to come true? I really hope so. The interesting thing, if you want to get into the mechanics of female portrayal in Game of Thrones, one of the things that you do have to hold on to is all of the best characters are women.

All of the women are incredibly complex characters. And they are no less vicious than many of the men. But some of them are also heroes and some of them are warriors and some of them are brilliant little tiny girls that can command armies. So the women are by far the more interesting characters. And I would like to see a woman on the Iron Throne personally,

and no one else is going to like this, I would like to see Cersei Lannister because I think she's the best character. Well, she was the one who was let down last night by the absence of elephants. And I think that meme has been very, very popular. But you haven't seen it. I haven't seen it because I've got a 17-month-old baby and I'm not allowed to watch Game of Thrones first thing in the morning. Oh, I don't know why. I'm sure. Have you read my parenting guide? It's absolutely fantastic. No, it's brilliant. It's yet to be written, but it's going to be absolutely brilliant.

I want really to get out of you, Danielle, the story about your therapist. So can we just hear it, please? Oh, when I was pregnant, the, during season seven, I was pregnant and I had a little bit of CBT for anxiety. And I went to see a therapist and he was explaining to me why anxiety is an important mechanism in the human psyche. And he said, you know,

fight or flight is really important because, for example, if you look back at men in history, they would have to use fight or flight to know when to run away from wolves or dragons. And sat there in this therapy room and I was and because I was pregnant part of me went maybe dragons did exist and I really doubted myself as a silly pregnant woman and no this man had been watching Game of Thrones and he honestly thought that dragons were part of medieval British history. Right and on that note I think we'll leave it. We won't give the name of the therapist for a multitude of reasons.

But I gather from hearing all of this and all this enthusiasm, Georgia, that this is a fun community, isn't it? This is a happy place to be, actually, so I gather. Absolutely. Yeah, I've made an extraordinary number of friends purely through being in the same place dressed up as ridiculous characters. At one point, I ran the biggest Game of Thrones cosplay group in the world. It was like 60 people strong. And these people, even though I don't have time to run that anymore

because I have a degree to not fail, they're still my closest friends. We still hang out and it's kind of amazing that just a random TV show can bring all of these people together that I never would have met otherwise. Well, thank you very much. That was really interesting. We heard from Georgia, from Danielle and from Ruthie.

And if you've got a view on Game of Thrones, you can let us know what you think on social media at BBC Woman's Hour. Jessica on Twitter was certainly in the audience at the O2 last night and she was very satisfied. A rapt audience for Michelle Obama, she says. Nearly two hours of fiery, funny talk about life, moral leadership and steering a course into the future for our young people. I loved it. It was honestly brilliant to be there.

I have to say, because one of our colleagues here in the office went, it was not cheap. And there's a suggestion that perhaps some of it was perhaps a bit cheesy for a British audience. We tend to be a little less, a little more rather cynical than our American friends. But anyway, if you were there, I'd love to hear what you thought at BBC Women's Hour if you want to contact us. Bank Holiday Monday, that's Easter Monday I'm talking about now. We are doing a programme about women and true crime. There are so many documentaries around at the moment. There's that astonishingly good BBC Four series about the Yorkshire Ripper, which I highly recommend. There was a programme on BBC1, wasn't there, the documentary about the

murder of Jill Dando. The disappearance of Madeleine McCann has been the subject of a Netflix documentary. And then there are podcasts as well. Serial, Teacher's Pet, My Favourite Murder. What is driving all this? Are women consuming more true crime than men? And why? And some of the issues actually are around this are pretty uncomfortable. We have to ask ourselves some quite difficult questions, I think. So we're recording the interest of transparency. We're actually recording this programme tomorrow. But if you want to get involved and give us your experiences, I would love to hear your emails on this subject. How do you feel about consuming true crime? So you can email the programme via our website bbc.co.uk slash womanshour.

Now, after the outbreak of the civil war in Syria in 2011, tens of thousands of Syrian refugees had no choice but to flee to Lebanon and many ended up in the Shatila camp in Beirut, originally built back in the 1940s for Palestinian refugees. And we can talk now to the author Micah Sivogel. Welcome, Micah. I've interviewed you before, most notably, I think, in my case about Magda, which was your astonishing novel about Goebbels' wife. Thank you for having me again. It's lovely to see you. But you're here in a very different vein today to talk about your work in the Shatila camp. So first of all, you're working there at the moment, are you? You just popped home for a brief period.

Yes, yes, I have. Yeah. So what are you doing there? You're there for a year? Yes. And I might even be there for longer, I think. So I originally went there in October to work full time for a local NGO called Basma and Zaytuna, The Smile and the Olive. And I then came across what at that point was called the Women's Workshop that Basma and Zaytuna had set up six years ago with NGO funding to train a thousand Syrian and Palestinian refugee women in embroidery art.

And they had started generating a bit of income by selling products, but the NGO money was running out and the workshop was supposed to close down at the end of 2018. And so that would have meant a hundred women would have lost their main source of 2018. And so that would have meant 100 women would have lost their main source of income. I then went to Shatila and I sat with the woman and what I discovered there was just an amazing, beautiful needle art, really. Well, we need to go back a little bit because when I hear an expression like Shatila camp, I picture a dusty plain and loads and loads of tents and nothing else. But in fact, this is not what we're talking about, is it? Can you just describe it to us? Yes. So this is so it's in the middle of Beirut. And as you rightly said, it was set up in 48 for 3000 Palestinian refugees.

It's not a tent camp. It's housing, but it was set up for 3,000 refugees. And because of the Syrian crisis, it now houses, the figures vary, let's say, between 20,000 to 40,000 people. So you can imagine what that looks like. It can't grow outward, it's one square kilometre. And therefore, in very precarious ways, has gone upwards. Electric wires, water pipes pipes all run wildly out. In the winter, we just had a really tough winter. There are lots of rain.

Between 40 and 60 people get electrocuted because walls get live. Puddles are even live. The hygiene conditions are atrocious. And the authorities, I'm sure the authorities in Beirut have got plenty to consider, because in fact, I'm sure you've seen that film, Capernaum, which was out recently, which is also about an astonishing film, a really good film. But to put it mildly, it's a challenging place. Do the authorities pay any attention to what's going on inside this camp?

No, it's a self-regulated one. The authorities do not enter that camp. It's regulated by a Palestinian factions, the various factions. So you have... And the Syrians and the Palestinians get on? Well, yes and no. You know, again, like in any other situation, you know, the Palestinians are there

and they've been there for three generations. Not, you know, they can't go anywhere else. And you then have an influx of, you know, thousands of thousands of new people. And of course, you know, I mean, there's lots of tension between them. And none of these people want to be there. I mean, the story I hear over and over again from the 105 women I'm working with is, A, they never wanted to leave Syria. So you hear a lot of the times where their place got bombed or it got too unsafe. They would then go and move from relative to relative or from person to person until they really had no other option than to leave Syria. And then the next thing, almost the same phrase comes up again and again, this idea and saying, and then we arrived in Shatila

and I just wanted to go back. I just thought, I mean, I was thinking anything is better than this. I go back to war. I go back to bombs. And they are largely women on their own heading households. Yes. So the 100 embroidery women, me and my team, I'm the only outsider. The five women I work with, the core team is Syrian refugee women, and we give work to Syrian and Palestinian refugee women. And most of them, and that was quite surprising to me, yes, so most of them are single women, often the only source of income, earning the only source of income for an extended family.

And the men are, they're either, you know, some of them have died during the war. A lot of them, as one woman puts it, you know, men crack under war, while women just keep on going. So men sometimes just get up and leave. Some might have tried to make it to Europe or whatever, never heard of again. And then the women are divorcing their men now. Because it's

one less person to look after. A brutal set of circumstances to put it mildly. So who are we to judge anybody? Men or women in these situations. But the intricacy of their craft is phenomenal. i know we're going to put a picture on our twitter feed of the the quality of the needlework but can you just this is a denim jacket you've actually got here which i think was made in the studio yeah yeah so i just want to i mean so it's um i call it needle art because what these women do really is, it's not like poor Syrian refugees can also embroider a bit.

Yes, they are preserving something very precious, which is dying out, which is the Palestinian cross-stitch, but they also use other embroidery techniques. And with these embroidery techniques, they are telling stories, and they are telling stories, their own stories. So the jeans jacket here that I have is about a young couple that fell in love in Shatila, Adam and Shaza. And here they're sitting overlooking the rooftop. And he's telling her a poem of how her hair looks like the sun. And this is what they've embroidered.

And she then eventually is actually electrocuted. But these women are telling the stories. And what grabbed me was that in some ways, because of the war, because of what they've experienced, they actually managed to reinvigorate an old traditional art form, the embroidery art, and telling stories of resilience, of strength, of hope. Yeah, I mean, I've seen some of the images of the work and it is remarkable and really beautiful. And it's being done in the most difficult of circumstances, in the most horrendous place, frankly.

Yes. So it's really interesting. Thank you very much, Micah. Thank you. I know Micah has a new novel coming out shortly called Flotsam, but she's basically in London at the moment, in Britain, to see if, well, frankly, you can find some suppliers for the work from the studio. So fingers crossed. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Lovely to see you again. Thank you very much. Now to a new film and photo exhibition, which aims really to challenge the stereotypes, and boy, are stereotypes, around the idea of black single mothers. Ebon

Tsunusi is one of the co-creators of this exhibition and Ebon is here along with a couple of other guests. We also have Bola Tajuddin, curator and creator of Black Blossoms, a photo exhibition which highlighted the voices of black women back in 2016. And Miranda Armstrong's here to associate lecturer at Goldsmiths, where she's doing a PhD. And both are single mothers, Bola and Miranda, that is. And Eben, you grew up with a single mom, is that right? Yes, I did. Tell me about your mom. So my mom was amazing. She was such a hard worker. And I think one of the main things I saw through my experience growing up in a black single motherhood was her love. She was so loving, so caring. And she was willing to do anything and everything to make

sure that my brother and I had just the best circumstances. She would work two, three jobs, juggling them to make sure that there was food on the table. And she always made sure we had the best education to make sure we did. Can I ask, when she was doing that, when she was working the two or three jobs, did she ever say so herself? Did she acknowledge, frankly, how tired she was and how much effort she was putting in or was it left to you just to observe it, do you think? I think she always made sure that she appeared strong to us. I think she doesn't want us to feel that what she was doing was burdensome or too much. So she never really said this is a lot or I'm tired. But you know, there would be moments when you could see that, even though we were quite young, I was around eight, nine years old,

I could still see that this was a lot that she was carrying. So this is a cause close to your heart from looking at your mum. Okay let's bring in Miranda and Bola. Bola tell me about your exhibition because it was a couple of years ago now wasn't it? It's not an exhibition it's a platform that highlights black women artists and so we've done quite a few exhibitions. We've done a touring exhibition across the UK in 2017 and our Ignore Your Exhibition was at University of the Arts London in 2016 and since then we've worked with the Tate. And basically it's just the platform to highlight black women artists because I felt like they were really unseen in society.

Well, unseen but regularly judged by society. I mean, we know that happens and still happens. How do you feel about it? About black single mothers? Okay. I feel, as a black single mum myself, I do feel like, especially when I first had my daughter, that I was really judged quite harshly.

I was 19 and I guess there was this stereotype that, oh, what are you going to do with your life now? And it was quite depressing. And I think I I worked really hard so I went straight back to university I got my BA I'm currently doing my MA with plans to go on to do a PhD and um you don't hear that story do you you don't hear that story you just hear of and the story that you do hear about I don't necessarily think it's true because the black single mums I know all work they all go to you know all they go to university there's probably a very tiny percentage that are on benefits that stay at home and look after their kids and if so

that's probably because they don't have the child care so it's more about the structures of society that's preventing them to be fully able to like take part in society life. Expressions like baby mother which are thrown around what would how do you define that actually just out of interest? How do I define baby mother so it's a urban sort of street slang word I think it's used by not only black people but it became popularized through the black community but it's used by not only black people, but it became popularized through the black community. But it's used by black people, white people, Asian people. I've heard that expression used quite fluidly in all different communities. And it's to describe the mother of someone's child.

Yeah, quite simply. But it is Miranda Armstrong. It's used as an insult, isn't it? Or in a judgmental way? It can be a bit belittling. It's certainly not respectful. And it doesn't reflect the hard work, which I don't want to naturalise because it is problematic about the weight and the weight that or the amount of responsibility that women take on um but it certainly isn't respectful and it doesn't reflect the the efforts the lengths that women go through to um support their children and provide for them i know as part of your phd you are focusing on mothers and sons particularly, aren't you? Tell me a bit about that.

There have been particular negative narratives about women raising sons. So around gender, the idea that boys need male role models in order to learn a balanced notion of gender. And also there are particular caricatures about black women, about black single mothers, so being domineering and emasculating. So I really wanted to investigate that. When I found out that I was going to have a son, I knew that I would be raising him alone and I felt very concerned about how things would pan out because I was conscious of that longstanding narrative that sons of single mothers were likely to grow up to be future problem men.

And because of that, because of that thought already being with you, did it challenge the way you were going to parent or did it make you worry that you wouldn't be that you couldn't be adequate? parent um so yeah it definitely intensified the burden but it also like motivated me to do everything in my power to make sure we were secure and that I could somehow be um both parents which yeah is kind of an unreasonable expectation yeah okay what do. What do you think about that, Bola? I know you have a daughter, don't you? Yeah. I mean, it's a stupid question, this, but is it, quotes, easier to bring up a daughter, would you say? I'd say it's different.

I wouldn't say it's easier. I guess the challenges are different. I would probably be a lot more worried if I was bringing up a son. Just because I am a girly girl I'm a real like I don't know not I don't know anything about boys or men but you know and I don't necessarily know if you need to know but I just I just feel like so is it in your head then that actually this this idea that boys need a father figure you it's in your head because you're thinking I've actually got an easier task on my hands bringing up a daughter no definitely not I don't that's no no that's not

what I mean I mean like I would just find it a bit more difficult to bond with a boy just because I'm so girly but I think you imagined that because I felt that way yeah but I think um yeah those gender stereotypes kind of do um like weigh on us but how things transpire you know is tend tends to be quite different from how you expect. Ebun how do you this is such complicated areas how do you bring it to your exhibition and get these talking points out there so we've interviewed a wide range of black single mothers and we've really asked them these kind of questions we've asked mothers who have raised black sons what their thoughts were on doing that and also whether they felt like they needed male figures to help support their sons and what we've really done is we've collated it into a documentary. So we talk about these issues.

We talk about raising black sons. We talk about balancing your career alongside being a black single mother. We talk about stereotypes such as baby mums. And we just want to open up a conversation to see what people think. And what kind of reaction have you had just in setting up the exhibition? We've had a really positive reaction. So people feel the need for this? Definitely. I think this is a conversation which needs to be had in different areas of influence. So how Miranda do you challenge the stereotypes are all out there. We've talked about some of them this morning. How do you challenge them them i definitely think that women's voices need to be

heard a lot more um women uh or black single mothers are spoken about and written about but rarely spoken to a lot of the people shaping the narrative are men so male politicians uh male journalists and yeah women's voices need to be heard and the voices of young people that were raised to gather their reflections because a lot of these, a lot of the claims made are assumption-based but if people go to the research, the claims are unsubstantiated. Give me an example of an unsubstantiated claim that's routinely made about black single mothers. Well in terms of black single mothers raising sons there's a claim that

men so young men raised by women grow up emotionally imbalanced so that narrative came out a lot after the riots that it was angry young men participating who had looked to the streets for their role models and had no one to steer them through manhood. The young men that I spoke to who had been raised by women were particularly emotionally articulate. They were very reflective. They'd seen what their mothers had gone through and were imagining doing fathering differently themselves um so there's a lot of

assumptions and not enough kind of um talking to people and thinking about how you know just looking in the wrong direction to kind of understand social problems. So looking at family units rather than social arrangements and social conditions. Really interesting. And obviously, we can't get to the heart of this in a limited amount of time we have. But people going to the exhibition, Evan, what are they going to see that you think might actually just change their mind a bit? So we've done this exhibition before, but this time we've upscaled it. So Vedette, my co-founder and myself, we have worked with a film crew.

The two people in our film crew are Timia Janney and Tom Mastin-Lee. And what we've really wanted to do through this exhibition is show people the reality of black single mothers. We are showing people what it looks like to be a black single mother. If that means having a career, if that means balancing, looking after your children, if that means going through mental health issues, we are showing people the reality which we have found through our stories

and we're presenting that through photos and through documentary and also through a panel, opening up that conversation which we have said so many times needs to be had. That's Eben Zanussi, one of the creators of the exhibition, which, by the way, you can see at a gallery called the Old Street Gallery in London on the 27th and 28th of April. You also heard from Bola Tajuddin and from Miranda Armstrong. And if there's anything you'd like to talk about there relating to that discussion,

drop us an email via the website, bbc.co.uk slash womanser, if you think there are aspects of that conversation that you'd like to carry on, really, and investigate further. So to your emails, let's tackle Game of Thrones, first of all. Chris says,

I started to watch and by episode two was fed up with the abuse of women and unnecessary female nudity. It seems to be prevalent in many television shows these days. It just isn't necessary to show sexual abuse in detail. Clever filmmaking implies it just as effectively. Susan didn't really like Woman's Hour doing the issue at all. She says, I saw bits of the early series of Game

of Thrones and actually I was just appalled by the gratuitous rape and the general denigration of women. The misogyny and the portrayal of women was entirely inappropriate. Even supposedly strong women were often subject to the whims of the male characters. What kind of a message does this programme give to our young people? More recent series may have changed the attitude, but every young boy who watches it from the start is going to see what I saw as the normalisation of rape, female nudity, women as sex slaves, etc.

The argument that this is a fantasy world, or a world based on a less developed society where the view of women was less enlightened, is totally ridiculous. The producers of the show were not looking for some kind of spurious historical accuracy when choosing to portray women like this. It was about ratings.

Historical accuracy is no excuse. Yeah, well, of course, we should say, this isn't historic. This is a world of fantasy. Clearly not about Britain in the Middle Ages, because, and this isn't a spoiler, we didn't have dragons wandering around in the court of Henry II or whatever it might be. It's a shame it didn't happen in a way. Still a lot of emails coming in on the subject of Fleabag, which I know was discussed on Women's Hour on Friday.

I have to say I'm a relatively recent convert to Fleabag. I've only watched, I think, three of the episodes of Series 2 and I haven't watched any of Series 1. But I am finding it really compelling and I'm definitely going to finish Series 2 and I probably should go back and see the whole of Series 1 as well, shouldn't I? It's incredibly impressive, everybody in it is brilliant and the writing is absolutely brilliant as well. Jackie says about Fleabag, why is the word flawed always being used? I think it's an awful word.

Lots of people will relate to some of these characters. They're not flawed women or men. Great programmes, Fleabag and Woman's Hour, says Jackie. Yeah, a lot of people are quite conflicted by the priest, aren't they? And whether they like the priest or not. I mean, he's not a patch on Richard Chamberlain as far as I'm concerned, but I know some people feel very differently. And here's another one about flawed. This is from Lucy. I just don't see what this

seriously flawed business is all about. If you look at every other character in the show, Fleabag isn't the most messed up or dysfunctional. If she suffers and can be self-destructive, it's often to cope with the actions of those she loves. Why do we need to focus on her flaws and not those of the men in her life

and her wicked stepmother? OK, and Michelle Obama, who went down a storm at the O2 in London last night, and I have to say, I wasn't looking for criticism, but I was interested to see if anyone who'd been last night felt they didn't entirely get their money's worth. Well, no, is the answer to that, judging by the people who emailed Woman's Hour.

So this is from Oyin Khan. Inspirational evening. Went with my daughter and joined other friends first for a pre-event lunch. We couldn't really figure out how Michelle was going to have an intimate conversation with thousands of people, but she did, and she made us feel she was our friend. She was a strong role model for old and young, black and white, spoke to all sectors and makes you want to be a better version of yourself and make your mark

wherever you are. And from Susanna, I saw Michelle last night. It had been billed as an intimate evening. Here's another one on the same vein. I thought that was an odd title, given it was at the O2, which is a huge arena. But it really was intimate. She filled the arena with her warmth and wit. She told great stories, particularly about her children growing up in the White House. My favourite was about how her girls were taught to drive by their secret service agents. Their first lesson instruction was, floor it! I was so glad I went to see her.

She's an impressive woman whose feet are firmly on the ground. And from Sophie, I only had a hype of three hours before the show as a kind friend messaged me about it on the day with a spare ticket. Why doesn't this kind of thing happen to me, Sophie? Sophie reports the majority of the audience were women and it was beyond wonderful to listen to her speak about her life before becoming First Lady, how she stayed herself and more. It's massive that place, but she really got the right atmosphere and the way the conversation was approached felt really intimate. It's going to be one of those occasions I won't forget ever. A strong, independent and fierce woman, not afraid to handle the tough subjects. Well, Sophie, I'm

glad you had a good night and I'm glad you've got such a good friend. Don't actually tell us whether you were charged for that ticket. If it was a free ticket, then I really do lose the will to live. There's absolutely no justice. Join us tomorrow for the programme on the podcast. Amongst other things, we're talking about sex counselling back in the 50s.

Oi, you. While you're here, amongst other things we're talking about sex counselling back in the 50s. wiped out most records of life. So when she finds an old recording of a rainforest, she has no idea what it is. Forest 404. Nine part thriller, nine part talk, nine part soundscape. Starring Pearl Mackie, Tanya Moody and Pippa Haywood with theme music by Bonobo. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds. Subscribe now. BBC Sounds. Music started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake.

No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? 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.