Woman's Hour - Actor Bukky Bakray, Iranian schoolgirls and poisoning, Singer Karen Carpenter reframed, TikTok school protests

Episode Date: March 3, 2023

Actor, Bukky Bakray, who at 19, became the youngest BAFTA Rising Star Award recipient as well as one of the youngest 'Best Actress in a Leading Role' nominees for her critically acclaimed performance in the film Rocks. Bukky makes her stage debut in the coming of age play Sleepova in which four Black teenage friends explore sexuality, identity, relationships and family as they head towards adulthood while struggling to maintain their friendships. Bukky joins Anita in the studio to talk about her career and the power of female friendship.Dozens of schoolgirls in Iran have been admitted to hospital this week after reportedly being poisoned by gas whilst at school. Over 1,000 girls have been affected by this since November and many Iranians suspect the poisonings are a deliberate attempt to force girls’ schools to close. The government hasn’t said whether it believes they are premeditated. We hear from Faranak Amidi, BBC Near East Women's Affairs correspondent and Azadeh Pourzand, Human Rights Researcher at SOAS. So-called 'TikTok protests' have continued to take place in Britain's schools as hundreds of pupils rebelled against teachers over new rules with some clips attracting millions of views. Although the specific grievances vary from school-to-school, the social media trend appears to be spreading, with children in Southampton, Blackpool and Essex staging demonstrations in the last few days that were posted on the platform. Protests over a ban on school skirts at an Oxfordshire school led to police being called and the school being forced to temporarily close. That school has now U-turned on its uniform policy. So where is the balance between standing up for your rights and breaking school rules? Can the two ever be compatible or always at odds. And how can girls and young women in particular learn to find their voice and be listened to? Technology and innovation journalist and author, Becca Caddy, Sangeeta Pillai- the founder of Soul Soutras, and activist, and founder of Love Your Period, Molly Fenton discuss.It has been 40 years since Karen Carpenter died. The singer and drummer was one half of soft-rock group The Carpenters, whose hit songs became the backdrop to the 1970s. Her death at 32 years of age from anorexia nervosa shocked the world. But did her early death overshadow her musical legacy? Lucy O’Brien has looked back over Karen’s life to write a biography, Lead Sister: The Story of Karen Carpenter.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Kirsty Starkey

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. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to Woman's Hour. On the programme today we'll be talking about Karen Carpenter. Don't worry Carpenter fans, there will be more music a little bit later. Lucy O'Brien has written a new book looking at the life of the drummer and singer. And this morning, who's in a rebellious mood? I am, but then I usually am.

As women, we always get the message, particularly when we're little girls, you have to behave. You have to be good little girls. Stay small, stay quiet, look pretty, obey the rules. Well, not today. Today, I want you to share with me your first act of teenage rebellion. Did you stand up to your teacher? Did you defy your parents? Did you protest for something you believe in? Did you break a rule? Did you listen to Meat is Murder by the Smiths and become a vegetarian? Did you roll up your school skirt to shorten it the minute you were on the bus? Did you snog someone inappropriate? Did you make a stand for some kind of change? After a couple of years of campaigning, my old school finally allowed girls to wear trousers. I'd already left at that point, but the change came, so it was worth the fight, sisters.

Or was it something a lot more fundamental and life-changing, coming out to your parents, to your community, fighting for your politics, your liberty, for your voice to be heard? Whatever your acts of rebellion were or are, get in touch. I would love to hear about them today. 84844 is the number to text. You can email me by going to our website. You can contact us via social media at BBC Woman's Hour. Or of course, you can drop me a WhatsApp message or a voice note. It's 03700 100 444. Do check all the terms and conditions. You can find all of those on our website.

Maybe your act of rebellion came later in life. What was it? How did it feel to stand up for what you believe in? Get in touch with me today. Also, the actor Bukhi Bakri, who won the E! Rising Star BAFTA for her acting debut in the excellent film Rocks, is coming along to tell me about her stage debut.

And we'll also be hearing about the reports of young girls being poisoned in schools in Iran. Could this be a retaliation of the protests earlier in the year? Well, we'll find out all about it now. Let me bring you up to date with what we know. Dozens of schoolgirls in Iran have been admitted to hospitals this week after being poisoned whilst at school. According to reports from an Iranian news agency, more than 1,000 students have been affected since November. They've suffered respiratory problems, nausea, dizziness and fatigue.

Many Iranians suspect the poisonings are a deliberate attempt to force schoolgirls' schools to close and prevent them from going to school. The Iranian government has not said whether it believes they are premeditated. Here to talk about this are Azadeh Porzand, a human rights researcher, and Farinak Amidi, BBC correspondent. Welcome, both of you. Farinak, I'm going to come to you first. What do we know about what's happening to the schoolgirls? Well, basically, we really don't know much because there hasn't been a proper investigation into what has been happening. The poisoning started around three months ago.

That was in November. And it started the first school that the incident took place in was in the city of Qom, which is a very conservative religious city. And it's known for being the center of religious studies and religious schools in Iran. In that first incident, 18 students were poisoned. Then the second time, a couple of weeks after that, again, the same school was attacked. And then after that, it started spreading to other cities. Ardabil and other cities started spreading. And then I was reading a report by the daily newspaper Etemad in Iran, which is published in Iran. And they said that 58 schools in 10 different provinces have been attacked.

But it's very interesting that this has been going on for three months. Parents have protested. They have been asking officials to investigate and look into what is happening. But nothing really has taken place. And when you listen to what the officials are saying, either MPs or other officials, police chief, interior minister, health minister, all you get a sense of confusion, you don't really get any kind of information, or you you cannot really map out what is happening. So we don't know what the gas is. That is very interesting that after all of these students,

1000 students have been poisoned, and not a blood sample has been taken? Nothing. You don't you cannot determine what the gas was, what caused poisoning or how did this gas get into the schools or who was behind it? Nothing is really clear. So what do we know then? How are these girls being poisoned? Have you spoken to anybody? Well, when you speak to and I have to mention that that is so difficult to speak to people in Iran. This is after one of the largest waves of the largest waves of protests and uprising in Iran since 1979. So the oppression in Iran and the censorship and the harassment by security forces is at its peak right now in Iran. So people are very scared to speak to journalists and journalists are all arrested. Most of the journalists that are independent are arrested

in Iran at the moment. So it's very hard to get actually personal accounts and statements from people. I was able to speak to a couple of people. And what we are seeing, what they are reporting, is that some strong, pungent smell fills the air. And after a while, students start getting sick. Some of them even report feeling a bit paralyzed in their legs and not being able to move. They feel dizzy, nauseous, and then they collapse. But what we also understand is that the symptoms go away mostly in 24 hours. Now, there are reports of some students saying that they have seen an object being thrown into the school from outside and then the smell comes. There are some of the students reports hearing something like a small explosion before the smell comes, there are some of the students' reports hearing something like a small explosion

before the smell fills the air. But none of these can be verified independently, really. Is there any kind of investigation into this yet? What's happening? Well, yeah, the Islamic Republic claims that it's going to investigate, that different authorities are claiming that the investigation has started. According to one of the news agencies affiliated with the Islamic Republic, I think yesterday, three individuals are arrested.

You know, you see on their sort of propaganda TV stations that they interview, you know, it's clearly somebody has been intimidated and they interview them to say, oh, I was a truck driver and, you know, I was carrying oil and I neglected by leaving my car next to a school. So I think basically what it is, is that usual scenario of the Islamic Republic's regime of claiming investigations that are not adequate, are not independent, and just simply is to distract the public and mostly for international consumption at this point. Do we know, do we have any idea who might be behind it, Azadeh?

In my opinion, it doesn't matter who is directly behind it because the intentionality at this point lies with the Islamic Republic of Iran. When we don't have enough information and evidence as human rights researchers, we have no choice but to look into precedence. and the performance of the Islamic Republic, you see a regime that is heavily anti-women and girls. And after especially the recent protests, extremely vulnerable to the power of women and their collective uprising, and in particular the Gen Z women. So we have to... Here we are today.

We opened the program by saying, let's talk about teenage acts of rebellion. But this is the severe consequences of what could happen. And the rebellion of these young girls, it got the attention of the world because, you know, people were being killed. Let's not forget 600 people, at least 600 people, were shot dead on the streets of Tehran for protesting.

And these girls so bravely were protesting in their schools. They kicked out officials of the government out of their schools. So it's interesting. A lot of people in Iran, when you go on social media and you see the reactions of people, the public, to these poisonings, they say that this is the revenge that the state is taking out on these girls. What do you think? of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the past few months, in one of which he explicitly said, you know, these children, these girls who got involved in the uprisings, you know, they were just, it's out of naivete and a little bit of punishment will fix them. You know, these are threats from like the higher, you know, authority of a very brutal regime. So I really, I really think we have to not dismiss the high probability of a speculation that this is indeed a systematic revenge.

And usually when the leader Ali Khamenei gives such speeches, we do see such reactions against women. It was a few years ago back in Esfahan when the topic of hijab was really hot and women were wearing their hijab a bit more loosely. And Esfahan is a traditional conservative society. Actually, it's where I come from. But then a wave of acid attacks started happening against women. So women were walking down the street, and they were being sprayed with acid. And this came after, you know, high ranking officials and the leader were talking about the hijab and that women need to obey the rules and issues like that. So it is, and again, right now that this is happening to the school girls people are bringing up that incident as well saying where did you you talked about investigations

because back then they said we are investigating we are going to look into this no one ever got arrested for those acid attacks and the investigation really didn't go anywhere is it working is it preventing girls from going to school? These these are these poison attacks that we're seeing now? What's what's the response been? Personally, I've seen sort of mixed reactions on social media. So obviously, you know, many parents are worried, you know, they're thinking of potentially keeping their kids at home for a bit. But I also have seen, you know, very courageous tweets, for example, by some moms who are saying we are thinking with other moms to get together and start patrolling outside of school so that our kids can still go to school. So they're taking the initiative into their hands. It's incredible.

Yeah, I spoke to a few mothers, their daughters are not in schools that have been attacked. But they are worried, they are anxious. And they have this dilemma because one of them has a son as well. And she was like, there's no way I'm going to keep my daughter at home and let my son go to school, because this is actually what certain people want. The radicals, the hardliners, super conservatives, ultra conservatives, that's what they want. They want our girls to stay at home and the boys to go to school. And you say, what do they want? This is a question that comes up time and time again. What is it that they want? What's the end game here for women?

I think when you look at this system, this regime since 1979, from the beginning that they took power, their goal and all of their policies was directed at marginalizing women and getting them back to home. So the first thing that Ayatollah Khomeini did was to revoke the Family Protection Act that gave women power in marriage, gave them right to divorce, made them not equal, but semi-equal to their partner, to their husband. That was the first thing that was revoked. Then the mandatory hijab came. So always the policies have been towards marginalising women. So maybe this is actually what they are looking for. I just wonder what the atmosphere must be like.

There must be a climate of fear. Yeah, I mean, fear certainly, and this is an intimidation technique. So to a degree, it may be serving its purpose. But I still think that even though these protests that we saw since September are not on the street, like in high numbers, I don't think the protest movement has died. And this is a protest movement led by women. And so I think the spirit of protest, of grievances, of wanting change is as strong as ever. So I really see, I think, you know, this spirit stronger than the fear element at the moment. And Azada, you grew up in Iran, how does it compare to your experience of being a young girl going to school? I did grow up in Iran. And I grew up, I mean, I was born into a

family of activists. So I was in, you know, my parents were in and out of jail. I, they had threatened to harm me if my parents continued their work. And I remember that how the schools that I used to go to were so supportive of this threat. A couple of times, even my school had to go into lockdown only because of me. And, you know, many parents, even some of the parents who would wear the complete veil, sometimes they would be taking care of me when my mom was in jail. They would even bring me a chador like the full veil when I had to go see my mom at the Revolutionary Court. So, you know, yes, these schools are highly ideological.

You know, you as a seven-year-old have to wear a full veil to go to school. The history that you read is distorted. You know, the religious studies that you read are much more than you should be exposed to. But at a grassroots level, school, I think, in many ways, is where the coalescence of parents, of children happens. And I think the Islamic Republic has realized this is a political hub more than they had hoped for. So they're fearing schoolgirls? Yeah. During the Cultural Revolution,

soon after the Islamic Republic was established, they felt free to close down universities and cleanse them of non-Islamic elements. The Cultural Revolution. Yeah, the Cultural Revolution. And so I think that now it has gone into schools and it's going to be a battleground for women. I really think so.

And I'm sure we will be talking about this again on Women Say. I want to thank you both for coming in. Thanks for having us. Thank you. Zadeh, Prasand and Farinak Amidi. Thank you. 84844 is the number to text. We are talking about all acts of rebellion this morning that you may have experienced at the age of 15.

Someone has said here, Anne. Anne has said, at the age of 15, I'd hide my clog hopper shoes behind our garden shed to change into once out of the house. My mum found out after the school call to say I had fractured my wrist, falling off them, messing around at lunchtime behind the school halls.

Oh no, Anne, you were caught out. Rosie says, every time I had an argument with my parents as a teenager, I would pierce my ears in my bedroom which I couldn't do it and when I couldn't do it anymore I concluded I wasn't angry enough anymore. Ouch! Sounds painful. On to my next guest. She's just

arrived in the studio. Let me introduce you. In 2019, Bucky Backray was 16 when she delivered a critically acclaimed performance in Sarah Gavron's brilliant film Rocks and at 19 became the youngest BAFTA Rising Star Award recipient as well as

one of the youngest Best Actress in a leading role nominees. Now bookie starring in Netflix thriller The Strays and Apple TV drama series Liaison alongside Eva Green and Vincent Cassell. She's also made her stage debut playing Fumi in Matilda

Fessi's, Fessi, Fessio Ibini's Sleepover, directed by Jade Lewis at the Bush Theatre in London. It's a coming of age play with four teenage black friends holding a sleepover with snacks and gossip. And here to tell us all about it is Bucky herself. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Hello. Thank you for having me. Stage debut. how is it? It's crazy. It's amazing.

I keep telling people this is the first time that I've ever finished a notebook. It's just full of notes from the director and from the other actors. As well as doing a play for the first time, I feel like I am absorbing so much like information that I can take with me for like forever tell us about the play tell us about sleepover this is four main characters four friends yeah so it's a play about four girls who have these like sacred sleepovers Ray L Shan and Fumi they've been friends since day dot and

they have these series of sleepovers and in those sleepovers we see how they talk about themselves, how they talk about their experience at school and how they talk about their relationships with their parents and it just

goes back and forth between houses Shall we have a listen to a clip? Our very first sleepover. I can't believe we convinced our parents. What? My dad's picking me up at midnight. Ow, but you said... I know that I could come over, but not that I could stay over.

But my mum was not having it. OK, but did you try everything? I tried everything in the plan. I gave them your mum's number, her email, her work address. They know she's a Christian. She goes to church every Sunday. She's not a tourist Christian. And I showed them the personal statement that your mum wrote.

And it worked because I'm here. But they will pick me up at midnight. Right, Cinderella. I knew i should have got my mom to do the dbs no my mom says why are you sleeping in other people's houses when you're not homeless yeah sleepover brilliant clip that you've probably not heard yourself on stage before have you no little clip um as you say it focuses on these four teenage girls. What does the sleepover represent? I think it represents them in their truest form. They're not bound by space.

They're not bound by trying to be who they're not. They're just themselves in these sacred spaces. And it's a safe space for them, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's a safe space. It's a beautiful space. it's a safe space for them, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. It's a safe space. It's a beautiful space. It's a sanctuary. It's very real and it's a big deal for them to be able to sleep over.

And a big deal for four teenage black girls to be able to express themselves freely. Exactly. And we get an insight into that. Yeah, exactly. To be honest, it's one of them plays where you, like, you shouldn't really be watching, but you're, like, you're getting to view a moment in time that you wouldn't really get to in real life, which is really interesting.

So, like, what these girls say in this space is stuff that people will never really get to hear. You never really get to hear these young girls' thoughts on the boys in their school or themselves or these adult things. It's really a chance to get into their minds. What was it like actually coming together with the other three actors?

Three of you, it's the stage debut, only one person has been on stage before i'm going i always want to know about the process when you get into a rehearsal room and you're reading the script what comes up between the actors um i think jatinder the cast and director he was he was really smart with this because it was really unusual usually you would do chemistry tests with the actors beforehand but Jatinder knew what he was doing

so the first time we met was when we were doing the read through the script and I felt like as we were reading we all kind of knew that making the connections and the chemistry was going to be the easy part and the hard part was putting it on stage. So there was like a, I wouldn't say an instant click,

but there was an instant symmetry between the girls, like with us and the characters. Like we knew why we were picked to do this and we knew why each other were picked to to be each other's friends did you see any parallel draw any parallels with your own lives oh i feel like i feel like the all girls school secondary experience transcends like a lot of things and i feel like we could all relate to different parts of the characters and we could our characters and the other characters so it just showed how we understood why these girls were friends in the first place

um and uh you went to an all girls teenage school yeah yeah so it was nice like i there's this old app called snapchat that like i delete i deleted as soon as I left secondary school. And wanting to attack the character, I kind of logged back in to see my memories from my old school. And it was like a different person, but it was crazy. It was such a nice thing to look back on. And it made me realise that this whole play is much more than an old. It's a great memory. And that must have been an amazing experience for you

because so much has happened since you left school. Yeah, yeah. Because you were plucked from school at 15 to star in Rocks. By the way, I know you are going to be told this for the rest of your life. Incredible. Thank you. Such a beautiful film.

So moving and quite right that you are a shining star from it because you were fantastic but even that wasn't that long ago five years ago so much has happened when you sit and reflect what what where what do you think about i just think like how did it's like you blink and it just happens how much do you have to thank rocks for that for your life now i think like most if like my thanks isn't towards my family it's it's towards rocks i think it seems really dramatic to say like an opportunity changed your life but it did because the people i I met friends that I will take with me for life if I'm allowed to. I met people who opened up my ideas. I remember I loved English and stuff like that, but I never really read

because I didn't like the literature that they gave us in school. And my English teacher told me that you're never going to get the grade that your brain deserves, but you're going to get the grade that you worked for. And I feel like the Rocks lot taught me what it means to work and enjoy, what it means to read literature that you enjoy. And I started reading more. It was those kinds of life-changing things

that Rocks gave us girls. It wasn't just about an opportunity. It was about a change of body, mindset, soul. Do you know what I mean? It was such a transformative experience. That's's very powerful and what's interesting is that watching the film rocks would have given so many girls another story yeah a british story that you wouldn't necessarily see we haven't seen before that yeah i mean i never really i never clocked how like important um identification is like when it comes to film

and tv and theatre well who did you identify with when you were growing up it's a great question probably like old American men because of my love for hip hop yeah so like I would watch stuff like Training Day and Love Denzel I mean do you know what I'm saying yeah or like even even Hawk I would fall in love with who inspired me but then not seeing yourself within that creates some sort of like confusion so I feel like I'm so grateful I'm in projects like Rocks and Sleepover because I feel like if I had watched Sleepover when I was, like, 15, 16, 17, I would have... It would have changed my bank of, like, of thoughts of what I could do in the foreseeable, you know?

Yeah, you will be doing that for the next generation. We should talk about some of the other work because you have been busy. Yeah, Liaison. Liaison. Yeah, it's a character. The character's drawn into an international cyber terror plot alongside Eva Green and Vincent Cassell. I mean, amazing actors.

What was it like to work on a big budget programme like that? It was cool. It was like one of the scenes, there's a big attack and the budget for just one scene was incredible. Like, I love independent film, but seeing something able to transform, like, build a train, do a crash, and do all of that, seeing Gravitasque behind the camera,

it just opens up your, like, your thoughts of, like, what can be done and how stories can be told with gravitas it was like it was dope daniel francis who played my dad like i we got along so well he's mad cool he told me about his past like he's he's um he's a secret he's got so many secrets i won't i won't say but yeah he's mad cool all right we'll wait till the microphones are switched off and you can tell me one of your secrets and then um you're in a social horror called The Strays as well you confront a mixed race woman who's trying to hide her past what was it like to play such an unsettling character um it was like it was really cool and like hearing everyone describe the character as unsettling when the opportunity

came it was the words described for abigail was on the spectrum and stuff like that so the eeriness and like the horror stuff it was only introduced to me after the film came out oh that's so interesting you know what I'm saying so it was like it's interesting I always like put Abigail in my life as the person who taught me a different level of empathy because I understood how people got to places where they're seen as outlandish in society they're seen as crazy but really and truly it's there's like there's a lot that got them there there's a lot of trauma that got them there and society making judgments exactly exactly so here you are exploring different characters different roles you've been in films tv series big budget um art house you're on stage new writers

and in and amongst all of that you are experiencing a new landscape and life for yourself yeah have you you must have grown so much in the last five years yeah proper like i mean grown so much still growing yeah um i'm like so grateful that i've been able to do things i've been so different to each other, like, from doing that to doing a play, working with, like, Jade and Matilda. Was acting something you wanted to do? I feel like it's one of the careers

that you just look at as a child and you think about it for a second. Like, I remember a memory of, like, watching Training Day, then I decided I wanted to be an actor. Can I just say I love that Training Day is your reference because it is an excellent, such a good movie. It's an amazing film. Probably one of my top ten films.

Yeah, and then I looked up how to... I was laughing about this with my friend Curtis the other day because I feel like every actor's done this. You're typed in how to be an actor. And then there's this agency that everyone probably knows and you have to pay for it. And then when everyone clocks that you have to pay for an agent, you're like, I'm not going to do this.

I'm going to go back and do something else. But it was just like another career, like me wanting to be a chef because I've been in MasterChef, do you know what I mean? It was just another one of those dreams. I feel like every young people feels like they can do everything at one point but then life hits and then they start going on Indeed

and looking at the highest pay per annum for the degree that they're going to get, do you know what I mean? Is it about the money now? Is it about the money or is it about something more than that? I think when I was a child, it was definitely about that. It was definitely about me getting me and my family

into a place that i could but again that's that's one thing that rocks and everything i'm doing now has taught me is that it doesn't have to be about that and i feel like that's important to have at the back of the mind but it's nice to have that being a part of the subconscious rather than something that's on your head all the time and that's why i feel really grateful i'm doing what i want to do because i love it but because i'm trying to get to a certain place yeah and more power to you i think you've got a brilliant bright future ahead of you i need to ask you one last thing before before i say i can talk to you all day um i loved there was a moment where you were on stage you'd want you, you were announcing the next E! BAFTA rising star and you announced Lashana Lynch and she came on stage

and you just, what did you say into her ears? Queen things. Yeah, I said queen things because Lashana's, yo, that was like a dream to give that to Lashana. She's, like, she's such a great person and I'm grateful that I was able to do that I feel like in any world it should have been the other way around or even just me watching it behind on tv do you know I mean but like she she's mad cool and she's been someone who's been really supportive from the beginning

even without even knowing me No it wasn't you watching at home on TV you were on that stage handing over the mantle it's been such a pleasure talking to you

I want to wish you more power for the future and come back and talk to us I know you've got a huge career and loads of success ahead of you

and good luck with the sleepover Thank you so much. I wish I was able to ask you some questions. We can do that later. Yeah. I know where you live. Bookie McRae, thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Your thoughts coming through. 84844 is the number to text. Lots of you getting in touch with your acts of rebellion. When I was 10 and going on a school trip, girls were told they couldn't wear trousers on the trip. A couple of us lied to our parents and said we were allowed to wear them.

So turned up wearing trousers. We got into big trouble and were sent to the headmaster, which was really scary. We then had to change into PE kit for the trip. Sheila Chilvers, outrageous. Susan says, all I did at school was to ask our PE teacher

if girls could wear navy shorts for high jump as PE skirts were often touched the bar we ended up doing it in our navy serge knickers in the late 60s PE knickers

question mark that's a whole other item for another day so called TikTok protesters have continued to take TikTok protests

have continued to take place in Britain's schools as hundreds of pupils rebelled against teachers over new rules, with some clips attracting millions of views. Although the specific grievances vary from school to school, the social media trend appears to be spreading, with children in Southampton, Blackpool and Essex staging demonstrations in the last few days that were posted on the platform. Protests over a ban on school skirts at an Oxfordshire school led to police being called and the school being forced to temporarily close. The school has now U-turned on its uniform policy.

So where is the balance between standing up for your rights and breaking school rules? Can the two ever be compatible or always at odds? And how can girls and young women in particular learn to find their voice and be listened to? Becca Caddy is a journalist and author who writes about technology and innovation and joins me now. Morning, Becca. How does this, how does TikTok, let's talk TikTok activism, how does it work? So TikTok's a social video app, but the key thing is there are some ways that it's really quite different to say Twitter or Facebook. And those ways that it's really quite different to say Twitter or Facebook and those ways that it's different actually really lend itself to kind of finding your people finding

community and you know ultimately activism and a few of those things one of the most important things for me you know when I first logged on TikTok was there's such a low barrier to entry. So unlike something like say Twitter or Facebook, where you need to find people to follow, they need to follow you back. On TikTok, once you've got an account, that's it. You're seeing things come up on your For You page immediately. What are the problems of activism via a social media platform i guess um a few of the problems would be you know who who owns tiktok um right now i think it's quite on the whole quite a positive place for this kind of activism for bringing people together for a lot of young people finding their identity in loads of ways but we have to ask kind of who owns it there's a lot of issues around tiktok in terms of um government surveillance and how people's data

is being used so although there are so many positives to using it to kind of connect with like-minded people there are a lot of things happening at the top that really we just don't really know about um which is quite worrying. Yeah. How does a movement snowball into a real life protest? So I think I think with TikTok, it's really interesting because in a way what we're seeing isn't all that new. People have always used kind of tech to arrange protests. Right. In some in some way. But with with TikTok everything is just quicker and easier to share and like I said earlier about that low barrier to entry I could sign up to a new account

now and start creating video content immediately and there's nothing really to stop it kind of if it connects with the right people the algorithm is really hard to kind of for us to unpick but it could kind of go viral straight away you know I don't need to be someone with loads of followers to to make that kind of content so there are so many with the way it's designed there are so many opportunities for things to snowball quite quickly. I'm going to bring in a couple of guests to talk about their teenage rebellion. Stay there though, Becca. Sangeeta Pillai built a whole platform on breaking taboos and speaking her truth. She's the founder of Soul Sutras and creator of the hit Masala podcast for South Asian feminists.

And also Molly Fenton, founder of Love Your Period, which she started back in school in 2019. I'm going to come to you first, Molly. What was it that made you feel you had to protest while you were at school? Well, that's actually quite a good question. It kind of got out of hand. I never saw it happening.

When I realised that this term period poverty was being thrown around a lot and there just weren't products available, there weren't products around, I was kind of talking to people around me and realizing that either people didn't want to talk about their period or it was a case of, oh, well, the products are expensive. They were getting more and more expensive.

So I kind of just started raising awareness on social media and it got picked up by, you know, lots of different schools, the Welsh government also within a few months I had a full-blown campaign that was working alongside the Welsh government what was it about you though Molly why wasn't it you know it could be any single person any of the girls in school that could have done that but it was you what is it about you do you think that felt I've got to say something about this? It was I think the first thing I came across in my whole life that I knew I really wanted to do I just felt really passionate about

it I've always been one of those people that never knew what they wanted to do with life never know what options to pick at my GCSEs or A-levels and this was just making me really angry and it was the one thing that I could get up and do public speaking about and that was kind of a sign for me to go well this you know this is what I need to do this for everyone else around me. Sangeeta I'm going to bring you in. Sangeeta when we were discussing this in the office about women who want to who are rebellious you're one of the first names that jumped to mind take that as a compliment we've been talking this morning and you've been listening about protests by girls and women in Iran and the consequences for them. How important is it for girls here in the UK to have their voices heard

on issues that they feel strongly about? I think it's important, really important. We must remember that teenagers are the ones pushing existing structures and boundaries, and that's kind of their definition. For me, kind of, I think, rebelling when I was 15 and challenging the structures that I was part of, you know, I was part of a very traditional Indian family. I grew up, I was the first woman in my family to have a job, go to university. So that rebellion led me like 30 years later to set up Masala

Podcast, which you were on, Anita, and my kind of feminist network. So I think unless we challenge as teenagers what is, nothing changes. So I think it's really, really important that we do. And I think it's, for me, it's wonderful when I speak to young people. I love what they say. And they have this activism and this kind of fire that older people don't. So I think it's super important. What were you rebelling against? You said your conservative Indian family, but tell us more. And how did it go down? Not very well. So imagine this. I'm a young girl. I'm 14. I live in Mumbai. I grew up in quite a

poor family. No one in that structure did anything different. I was kind of standing up and saying, well, you can't make me do these things. And those things were things as small as wearing the clothes I wanted to wear, choose the job I wanted to kind of apply for, the friends, the clothes, two things like everybody was having an arranged marriage around me. The word feminism didn't exist in the India that I grew up in. So at about, I think I put up with it for a couple of years. And about 15, I kind of had this awakening, I think, within myself. And I was like, well, I don't want this.

You're saying this to me. But this doesn't sit right with the person I want to be. And it didn't go down well at all. So I was, the way I see it, I waged war for about 15 years with my family. I lived at home because Indian girls didn't leave home at that time. And I fought with my family. And it was really difficult for them, I think, because no one around me was saying the kind of things that I was saying or wanting the kind of things I was wanting. Now looking at it from a, you know, in Britain in 2023,

like I was asking for very normal things. Can I choose the person I want to marry? Can I have the job I want? Can I wear the clothes I want? Can I cut my hair short? You know, they were very simple things. But at that time, they were extremely challenging for my family. But I'm so glad I did it because that was the making of me.

That made me the person I am that is now able to sort of stand up and say the things I say within my feminism and my activism for South Asian women. And here's the thing, when your parents are trying to stop you from making you live by their rules, what was your reaction to that? Does it fuel your fire or did you think, oh, maybe I need to tone it down? It absolutely fueled my fire. And it was, I'll be very honest, it was hard because I could see that they were coming

from a place of love, but I could also see that they were limited in their understanding of what was possible for me as an Indian girl. Like the best my mother could think of was a nice guy would marry me. Like that was the best aspiration she would have for me. But I kind of knew that there was more to the world and life than what I was being told. So it did fuel me. And to this day, I think that that fire is what keeps me going. And that's what kind of wakes me up.

And when I hear stories like what's happening in Iran, it fills me with so much pride. You know, the girls are challenging what is being said to them. It's amazing. Including Molly. Molly, I want to know about how you dealt with the backlash to what you were standing up for. Well, of course, we all know that when we do pick up on taboo topics or anything like that, that we're going to have someone that's not happy with us but um i think the campaign that i have is probably 60 percent hate and 40 percent you know people actually being really accepting but that's how do you keep going

much more i don't know actually it's it kind of it encourages me it encourages me to carry on it shows that it's needed you know we launched a period proud wales um last week which we've been working on the government with since 2019 and it was a really big achievement for us and we had to shut down the social media pages for three days because we were having all sorts of horrific messages and threats and all sorts um but that just kind of shows that the love your period campaign you know the name itself it's needed because how is it that just blood of shows that the Love Your Period campaign, you know, the name itself, it's needed. Because how is it that just blood that's in all of our bodies is all of a sudden become something that makes us less of a human being? Or, you know, should get in the way of our everyday lives?

What is the issue around it? And, you know, it's obviously something that I think all of us face in society with the jokes around PMS or oh she's on her period jokes like that but you know shouldn't really be jokes and women shouldn't be taught that they're being held hostage to their hormones their whole lives you know it seems to be you're a teenage girl you're hysterical and then you know as you grow up and you're looking at pregnancy and motherhood again and then you hit menopause and those hormones you know even though they've been and you're looking at pregnancy and motherhood again, and then you hit menopause and those hormones, you know, even though you've been blamed for them your whole life, you're all of a sudden, people are being pushed out of work

and being told that, you know, their value decreases. So it's a whole life. And your campaign has got to the Welsh Government. You've been working with them. Yes, we work with the Welsh Government and UK Parliament on period dignity. And we work with many international organisations, such as Plan International and iRise International on big campaigns in order to around period stigma and legislation for both menopause and periods. You're gonna have to go on Sangeeta's podcast, aren't you? She's nodding away.

And this is how things change, right? This is the fundamental, isn't it, Sangeeta? You need people to be the rebels to make the change for the next generation. Particularly as young women, I think we have to kind of encourage our young women to kind of challenge what exists because unless they challenge what exists, things carry on. And we know there's a lot that needs changing in this world today. So I think it's amazing. And yeah, you're very welcome on my podcast. Sangeeta Pillai, Molly Fenton and Becca Caddy. Thank you very much for speaking to me about that.

Lots of you getting in touch with your acts of rebellion. I was got thrown out of swim bath numerous times in 1968. Why? Girls had to wear swimming hats and boys did not, even though they had longer hair than me. I was 14. My Carol says,

my rebellious nature began very early. I'm now in my 60s. I've challenged girls expected school uniform whilst at school. And when teaching, I've called out racism and sexism when it was when it had been expressed and i suppose the first time i expressed rebellion

openly was about age 10 when i challenged my mother about why it was that i had to let help lay the table for dinner yet my brother did not have to her answer that he was a boy was my road to damascus. Amen to that, sister. 84844 is the number to text. And now, on to my last item. I've been teasing everybody about this. I said you would have some music, and indeed you will have some. The Carpenters were one of the biggest bands of the 1970s.

Let's remind ourselves of some of their hits. Karen Carpenter's voice became the backdrop to the 1970s, but this year marks 40 years since she died at the height of her fame, shocking the world when she was only 32 years old. She had a heart attack brought on by her long-standing eating disorder, the condition anorexia nervosa became a household topic. But has her tragic end overshadowed her legacy? Who was Karen Carpenter, really?

Well, biographer Lucy O'Brien has looked back over her life for her biography, Lead Sister, the story of Karen Carpenter. And Lucy joins me now. Hearing those songs can transport people back to the 70s. What were your memories of the Carpenters? Well, I remember I was in primary school and we sang Top of the World in the school choir. And I do remember the carpenters as being this symbol of, you know, in the 70s, growing up in rather grey, cold England.

America seemed this amazing, bright, sunny place with blue skies and big fat wide cars and then the Carpenters sort of big fat wide music to kind of they really symbolize that time. Why did you want to write about Karen Carpenter? Don't we know everything there is to know? Well I you know a lot of my work is is kind of looking at female artists and kind of reframing what they've done and understanding what they've done with the awareness that we have now. So, for instance, I did a book about Dusty Springfield, the 60s singer, and the more I looked into it,

the more I thought she was an actual producer, but she didn't get the credit. And my feeling about Karen Carpenter was, here was this woman at the top of her game, you know, an amazing singer and also an amazing drummer who didn't get enough credit for that. Which is, think of it like a drummer and a lead singer, so ahead of her time.

Yes. I mean, now people are, it's very interesting, you know, when sadly it was the 40th anniversary of her death um last month and but what people were kind of um putting on um twitter and and kind of the whole conversation on social media was about her drumming interestingly and um there's some amazing footage of of her expertise so i i kind of i felt that her tragic death had really overshadowed the way we receive her and the way we think about her. And I wanted to explore, was she a fragile victim? Or was there more to her? And the more I went into it, the more I realised, gosh, there was someone who was really determined and really quite a tough

cookie. You started the book at the beginning, her childhood. So what was her family like? Mother, question mark. Right, okay. Strange. Yeah, go on, strange. As, you know, I interviewed Nikki Chin, one of her former boyfriends, I said, you know, what were her parents like? And he said, strange. And a lot of people seem to use that word.

I think a very close-knit family. Probably there were quite a few issues within the family. And, you know, it's significant that Richard and Karen, her brother, their parents were living at home with them long after they'd become successful. And, you know, in their kind of early mid-twenties, they thought maybe it's time for us to live separately from our mum and dad. And they bought a new house for their parents to move into, but the parents didn't want to move. So Richard and Karen moved out instead.

So interesting. And we just had that tweet from somebody saying that she was told that your brother doesn't lay the table. Well, Richard was really favoured, wasn't he? Yes, and I think that's part of the problem. Nicky Chin said to me he felt that a lot of the root of her pain was the fact that Richard was undoubtedly the favourite. And certainly in their mother's eyes could do no wrong.

He was the genius. He was the reason they moved from Connecticut to Los Angeles in the early 60s to kind of further his career. And he was often credited as the architect of the Carpenter Sound. And he was the whole genius behind it. Whereas the more I looked into it, the more I could see how much Karen contributed in so many ways. And she was also in the studio 24-7 with the musicians, with her brother. Yeah, so the mother lavished all her attention on the son he was described as the genius like you said they moved from connecticut to la what what

impact did that have on karen well again um this thing of looking again at someone's life what i noticed the more i looked into it was um she was a high achiever at school in New Haven, Connecticut. When they moved, she was 12, 13 years old. Her grades plummeted. She stopped doing sports. She was a keen sportswoman. She was snacking on junk food. She was clearly not happy. And a lot of research shows that, you know, if you if for teenagers, particularly teenage girls, if you move and you move like she did thousands of miles away, away from her friendship group, that causes stress and trauma and her way.

And I thought it was significant that she started to become much more happy when she joined the school marching band and she was playing drums and she was up front playing drums back to her mum her mum was the one who took her to the doctors oh my goodness yeah everyone listening you're gonna love this or not well i was so shocked at this um uh okay so here's karen 17 years out, by then, starting out in the music business with her brother, going to auditions, playing drums, etc. And then her mother charmingly says, you're hefty round the butt and takes her to the doctor. And the doctor prescribes a Stillman diet, which is mostly just drinking water with a little bit of carbohydrates. And I just think, oh, my goodness. You know, we we realize now and I'm the mother of a teenage daughter is you have to be so careful about the language you use, the way that you anything to do with weight or body image, you have to be so careful. And then, of course, she, on top of all of that,

had the pressures of being a woman in the music industry. Yes, which were considerable when we go back to the 1970s American music industry, which was pretty ruthless, very male-dominated. She still managed to find a way through, not just as a singer, but as a drummer. And she was very happy singing and drumming at the same time. Not many people can do that.

Could you do that? I couldn't do that. So, you know, that was an incredible skill that she had. And that was taken away from her by the record company and the management when what happened um so uh the carpenters um started um uh having hits um they were signed to a&m records they had their first hit in 1970 and then by 1971 they were in the charts being played on the radio constantly constantly touring.

Karen was very happy playing drums, touring with the band. She liked being with the guys. And then her brother said to her, they were driving across the States one day to visit some relatives. I think you need to let the drums go now. And we just want you to stand up front and sing the songs because there was a view um a widespread view at the time that it was unfeminine to play the drums it didn't you know as lester bangs the rock critic said you know karen's she's a good drummer but it doesn't give you much to look at how shocking and you know it was do you do you think that her eating disorder started at that moment possibly when her mum took her to the doctors well i think she was probably vulnerable anyway

um and i think yes i mean being taken to the doctors and put on a diet i mean that's just um yeah do you think she ever knew the extent of her own eating disorder no i don't and um i i talked with quite a few people about this and including one of her very good friends, Cherry Boone O'Neill, who was also a singer at the time, also struggled with anorexia. And she said that she felt Karen was in denial about her illness. But she also said that there was a culture of silence then. You know, no one really, the terms anorexia, bulimia, even the term eating disorder, people didn't have the language for it or the understanding of what was going on.

Reading the book, it just made me want to give her a huge hug and tell her how brilliant she was. But she was told, but she didn't believe it. When John Lennon, I love this little anecdote in the book, John Lennon walked past her and what did he say? He said, you've got a lovely voice, love, you know, and she was just gobsmacked. A beetle just said to me, he thought my voice was amazing. And she couldn't believe it. She just couldn't take it on board. Well, you've written the book to reframe the story of Karen Carpenter. Anybody who's a fan should pick it up.

It's by Lucy O'Brien. It's called Lead Sister, the story of Karen Carpenter. Thank you so much, Lucy, for coming in to talk to us about her. And we've thoroughly enjoyed listening to a bit of the music. I'll probably be listening to a bit more over the weekend. Lots of you getting in touch with your rebellious acts. Rebellion got thrown out of the swimming baths numerous times because I was told to wear a hat and the boys didn't have to.

That's it from me. Join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Please, I beg you in the name of God, I need some assistance from you. Who is worthy of our trust? I just thought this is very, very shady

and there's something definitely wrong about this. He didn't believe me. I said, well, I'm not a schemer. I'm not a bad person. Join me, Matthew Side, for the latest season of my BBC Radio 4 podcast, Sideways. Seven new stories of seeing the world differently and the ideas that shape our lives I need to figure out a way to really compensate him or else I'm going to be the scammer that I accused him of being Sideways on BBC Sounds I'm Sarah Treleaven and for over a year,

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