Woman's Hour - Actor Rosamund Pike, childbirth and incontinence, Sharron Davies and her new book, Isabel Hardman on Daisy Goodwin

Episode Date: June 28, 2023

On Monday, the TV journalist Daisy Goodwin accused the Tory mayoral candidate Daniel Korski of groping her breast during a meeting at No 10 in 2013. He has denied the allegation "in the strongest possible terms". She has now contacted the Cabinet Office asking to make a formal complaint. Nuala speaks to the assistant editor of The Spectator, Isabel Hardman for her take on the situation. Ensuring fairness in sport is a much debated topic, most recently following World Athletics and British Cycling joining swimming, triathlon and rugby in banning transgender women from competing in the women's category. Someone who has been campaigning on this issue is Sharron Davies, an Olympic silver medallist and swimmer who competed in many international championships for Great Britain. Nuala speaks to Sharron about her new book Unfair Play: The Battle For Women's Sport.Doctors are calling for better support and care for the thousands of women whose lives are devastated by anal incontinence after childbirth. New research by the University of Warwick's Medical School reveals more than 20% of women who give birth vaginally experience this, which can devastate their personal and professional lives. The team discovered missed opportunities in getting a diagnosis, no clear pathway to get treatment and a lack of awareness amongst not only healthcare professionals but also mothers themselves who often keep it secret. We hear from associate professor at the University of Warwick's Medical School, and GP, Dr Sarah Hillman, who led the research, and Anna Clements who experienced severe injuries during the birth of her 3rd child, and has anal incontinence. She now works for the MASIC Foundation which supports women who are injured having their babies.Rosamund Pike made her breakthrough film role as a Bond girl in Die Another Day and followed that with Pride & Prejudice, Made in Dagenham, Jack Reacher and A Private War to name just a few. She was Oscar-nominated for Gone Girl, won a Golden Globe for I Care a Lot and an Emmy for State of the Union. Recently she’s won an award for Best Female Narrator for her narration of the first book in the Wheel of Time novels by Robert Jordan. She joins Nuala to discuss her current role of Connie , a woman who fakes her own death in a BBC audio adaptation of the book People Who Knew Me.Presenter: Nuala McGovern 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, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Good to have your company. We have the actor Rosamund Pike with us today and whether it's Gone Girl or I Care A Lot or Die Another Day, you'll probably be familiar with Rosamund's face. But I've been concentrating on her voice. I have been listening

to the Radio 4 podcast People Who Knew Me. It's about a woman who faked her death after 9-11. It's gripping, brilliant and so, so different. So I can't wait to chat to Rosamund

about how she uses her beautiful voice in that way. And also, you know, what's it like to be an audio actor? How different is it to being seen? Now, you listening, you're a radio or a podcast listener, so obviously you care about audio. And I'm curious to hear about the role of audio in your life.

Do you listen to books instead of reading, for example? Maybe you have a favourite female narrator that you'd like to tell us about. I found during the pandemic that I started to listen to books. At times, I just didn't have the bandwidth to read.

And it is a habit that has continued, but now interspersed very much with reading, particularly since I've been presenting Woman's Hour. And I found that who narrates makes the world

of difference to me. So I'd like to hear your stories about audio. I do feel it's having a moment as well. The number is 84844 or on social media, we're at BBC Woman's Hour or you can email us through our website for WhatsApp or a voice note.

That number is 0 700 100 444. Also this hour, Sharon Davies on her new book, it's Unfair Play, the battle for women's sport. We'll have that conversation coming up and we'll also speak later this hour about a condition that is

rarely spoken about. It affects some women after childbirth. It is anal incontinence. We're going to hear from a woman who has suffered from it and also about what has been done to raise awareness, not just among women, but also their health care providers. So do stay with us for all of that. But I want to start with a story you might have seen on Monday. The TV journalist Daisy Goodwin accused the Tory mayoral candidate, Daniel Korski, of groping her breast during a meeting at Number 10 in 2013. He has denied the allegation in the strongest possible terms from his spokesperson.

She, Daisy, has now contacted the Cabinet Office asking to make a formal complaint. Now, this morning she appeared on the Today programme. She was speaking to Martha Kearney. Here's what Daisy had to say about the complaints process. I realised that there were a number of comments yesterday from the Cabinet Office saying that no one had made a formal complaint, so they couldn't investigate it. So I decided I would make a formal complaint. I rang the switchboard for number 10. And nobody wanted to put me through to anyone. And finally, I got through to someone

and they said, oh, we can't take messages. So I thought, well, that shows it's quite difficult to make a complaint. Then I emailed the cabinet Office and I got a out of office email saying, if this is urgent, please contact somebody, the weekend cover on Switch. So it's basically like trying to get through to BT if your phone line's gone down. I mean, it's not an easy process. So I hadn't heard from anybody until the Times ran a story saying that I was filing a formal complaint and then I got an email from someone within about 35 minutes. And what did that email say, if I can ask? It just said, I suggest that we talk. I mean, it just offered to have a conversation with me on the phone. Do you think the Cabinet Office, number 10, that's the right place to complain? Have you

also thought about the Conservative Party? Because it's, it's Daniel Corsi wants to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor. Well, I'm happy to complain there too. But I assume that because this happened in Downing Street, that I should complain to them. But I'm happy to complain there too, but I assume that because this happened in Downing Street that I should complain to them, but I'm happy to complain to the Conservative Party as well. A little earlier, I spoke to the assistant editor of The Spectator, Isabel to complain about all sorts of different levels of behaviour towards them by politicians or aides. And who have found a similar confusing mix of organisations, departments, individuals who they should or shouldn't be complaining to and I think you could say well maybe this is just the way things are in government I think you could say it's a conspiracy to stop people from being able to complain easily what I think it does show is that there is a reluctance to encourage complaints

and to deal with them in a timely fashion, because if you allow this Byzantine setup to continue, then you're in effect saying we're quite happy to make it as difficult as possible for complainants to even know where to go. I mean, you often get women who try to complain to the party whips first because they can't think of where else they should be going. It's not signposted. It's not made clear. And I think it's not made clear for a reason because there's a reluctance to deal with this issue. And has there been any push for those guidelines to be more visible, to be more known? I mean, we're hearing about a Pessminster scandal really since 2017 in various guises to varying various levels since then.

Yeah, and we've had a number of reports into the way that Parliament in particular deals with allegations of harassment and bullying and Parliament and the Labour Party have had to change their complaints processes. But it's still very much juries out as to whether the changes they've made have led to a quicker, fairer, independent process that victims, complainants can have faith in.

I'm not sure we can say yet that they've succeeded in making those changes effectively. I think one of the problems is that we have a society that still doesn't take complainants, take women seriously when they do complain. And so all the incentives are still loaded towards not taking this seriously, not proactively even seeking out bad behaviour

and trying to stop it. It's very much the onus is on the woman who may feel that she has a great deal to lose from making complaints. And that's often why complaints aren't made, is that it just feels as though everything is going to sort of fall in on top of the woman complaining. I think Daisy Goodwin's been very brave in making these allegations again, because when she previously made them, without naming the advisor who touched her inappropriately, she said that she found that there were pictures all over the newspapers of her that just miraculously seemed to always feature her cleavage, a sort of suggestion that, you know, by having a certain size chest, she might have been asking for this. And that's the kind of treatment she knew she was going to get if she raised it again. So it's very brave of her to do so. There, I think, are a lot of women who are more junior

in their careers, who have less power, who would just think, no, this is absolutely not worth it for me. And I have to say, allegedly, he does deny all the allegations that have been levelled against him at the moment, Daniel Korski. You instead have written about being referred to as top totty by a politician. That was in 2016. What happened? Yeah, and that was such a low level complaint. I mean, it was something that just really irritated me because it was in a place of work.

It was someone who I'd only had, you know, two bits of contact with, both entirely professional. And I was just fed up of that sort of level of disrespect. It wasn't a kind of distressing moment for me or anything like that. But I felt that, you know, as someone who by that point had been in Westminster for quite a while, I probably had enough power to say, no, I don't want this to happen. So I complained to the party whips, largely actually because I knew one of the whips at the time, Anne Milton, who was deputy chief whip for the Conservatives. I knew that she was the sort of person who would take that really seriously, who abhorred boorish behaviour by her male colleagues. And she did take it seriously. But what also happened to me was that there was

just this mad week of, yes, pictures of, you know, me on tv generally sort of um full body pictures um to sort of suggest that perhaps i don't know by the shape of my body i was asking to be called totty um and just this endless debate about whether i should have taken it as a compliment and whether i was a strong woman um or not because i'd complained i mean my personal view is that actually firstly would i've done it again i don't think i would do it again because it was just a or not because I'd complained. I mean, my personal view is that actually, firstly, would I have done it again? I don't think I would do it again because it was just a complete pain, the amount of attention it got. But also, actually, I was strong for raising it because there are lots of more junior women who just have to suck that kind of thing up. And I don't think

that's right. I'm struck by the fact you say you wouldn't do it again. Yeah, I mean, it was it just caused me a huge amount of grief. And I don't think it's changed that individual's behavior. I think it may have laid down a marker. But in terms of the personal grief that it caused me it wasn't worth it um and um you know that's a difficult thing to say because I'd like to say oh yes you know I'd stick by my principles um but actually I look back on that time and just think well I mean there were a lot of women who were very un-sisterly to me during that um period lots of women who absolutely backed me up um and men but yeah and men actually the

really interesting thing was that i was encouraged to complain by a male mp and a male journalist both of whom were utterly horrified that that had been said to me and if it hadn't been for those two men saying are you going to complain about that oh my god this shouldn't happen to you i would have just passed it off thinking oh you know this is just so standard it was but was by no means the worst thing that happened to me in Westminster it was just that I guess in a really awful way I was given the permission to complain by men which now I think about it it's quite depressing it's fascinating. Just before I let you go, Isabel, I believe that Daisy wants other women to come forward by talking about the incident that occurred with her, allegedly. Do you think they will? It does tend to be the case that once one person has broken cover, there feels like there's more safety for others, even if there's a lot of bad treatment of that person.

I'm sure Daisy's feeling quite under attack from some quarters at the moment. But it does tend to be the case that people do think, think right now is the time that that i need to to speak up um and i hope that they're treated well for for doing so if they do come forward um but also i hope that there's a due process here because what i think is really unfair and that hasn't changed since you know 2017 when pestminster started is that you just get this trial by really by Twitter and because the complaints processes in all the parties and parliament and the government and all the different structures where you can complain because none of them are fit for purpose you often get people who have had allegations made against them who don't feel treated well either.

And it's often the case that actually we don't have a fair and independent resolution to these complaints. It shouldn't be the case that they're prosecuted over Twitter. But we are in the position where it's very difficult to trust most of the complaints processes in Westminster at the moment. Isabel Hardman. And this morning we have approached the Conservative MP that Isabel mentioned for comment. And if we get that before the show ends, we will bring it to you. And a campaign spokesperson for Daniel Korski has said this morning, and I quote, in interviews with Talk TV and the Daily Express yesterday,

Daniel Korski made it clear that he welcomes any investigation. That remains his position and he will cooperate fully, unquote. Daniel Korski has said he didn't do what has been alleged by Daisy Goodwin. He said, I absolutely didn't do that. A number 10 spokesperson has said that they can't speak to the allegations or reports around former members of staff under previous administrations. And the Conservative Party has said the Conservative Party has established a code of conduct and formal processes where complaints can be made in confidence. Now let us move on to the question how do you ensure fairness in sport? Well it is one of

the biggest questions right now not just in competitive sport, but also at the grassroots level as well. In recent months, World Athletics and British Cycling have joined the sporting bodies for swimming, triathlon and rugby in banning transgender athletes from competing in elite women's sport. The swimming body, World Aquatics, is establishing an open category at competitions. That's for swimmers whose gender identity is different from their sex observed at birth. Some critics have said these rules are discriminatory. Emily Bridges, the country's highest profile transgender cyclist, reacted to the announcement from British Cycling with a statement on social media

calling the change a violent act by a failed organisation that was controlling the conversation on transgender inclusion. Well, today I'm joined by Sharon Davies, the former competitive swimmer who represented Great Britain in the European, Commonwealth and Olympic Games, winning a silver at the Moscow Games. That was in 1980. Her book, Unfair Play, The Battle for Women's Sport, has just been published. Welcome, Sharon. Thank you. Welcome.

That was an interesting conversation, wasn't it? Gosh, yeah. I find I have to say that, you know, when men come out on Twitter and say the same thing as me, they get nowhere near the abuse that women get. We're living in quite strange times. It's definitely something we come back to again and again on Women's Hour, the abuse that females in whatever sphere do appear to get. And I know politicians as well as journalists.

But let us talk about you. I was fascinated reading your book about your experiences as such a young athlete competing in the Olympics. Take us back to your experience as a competitive swimmer and also where your motivation comes from to speak out now. Yeah, it comes because I was competing during that East German era. I'm sure a lot of people listening

will remember during the sort of 70s and the 80s and until the war came down in 89, how incredibly dominant the East German girls were. It was particularly track, swimming and rowing. You know, that's where they really specialise. And what they worked out was that if they could put young girls through male puberty, then they could have this total and utter dominance in the swimming pool and on the other sports as well. So to the extent that at European level, they won 92% of the women's medals and practically none of the men. And for nearly 20 years, absolutely nothing was done. And of course, there were two victims, you know, the victims like myself, and friends of mine that won no medals at all, even though, you know, they were supreme

athletes, they were fourth behind three East Germans. And no one has ever remembered or heard their name and their whole careers are different because they haven't had those opportunities. I'm very lucky. I got on that podium. I beat two of the East Germans. And I've had the advantages that I've had. But I have friends that have not had those advantages. I mean, a name that comes to mind is Cathy Smallwood, Cathy Cook, who was an absolutely

phenomenal track athlete in Great Britain in the 400s and 200s. She held the British record for, you know, three decades until Christine Horrigan came along and beat it only fairly recently. And yet again, Cathy went off to become a PE teacher. Absolutely nothing wrong, of course, with being a PE teacher, but Cathy's career would have been totally different. You know, she was able to win the medals that she should have won. So I was very, I don't know if scarred is the right thing to say, but obviously very affected by the fact that the IAC for 20 years did absolutely nothing to stop this. And I didn't want to see another generation suffer the same consequences through different reasons.

But at the end of the day, it's the same end result. Testosterone, whether that's artificial testosterone that was given to young girls or whether that's national testosterone that happens through puberty for males, means that they are competing in an unfair platform. And it's vastly different. I mean, we have men and women's competition for a very obvious reason, that we're physically very different. And we perform very differently, between 10 and 30% is the difference at Olympic level. And we can't remove that by just, you know, suppressing testosterone for a few years, what's been built during puberty will remain. And it's about trying to find solutions. It's not about trying to ban anybody. It's not about trying to keep anybody out of sport. I spent my whole life, Nuala, trying to encourage people to do sport. I love sport,

you know, I really do. I believe that we don't use it enough. And that young people in particular are suffering because they aren't physically as active as they should be. So the last thing I would want to do is that. However, I do believe that people that are female are worthy of fair sport the same way that people that are male are worthy of fair sport. So let's find better solutions. The only sensible solution I can come up with is an open category. So we ring fence the female category for those that are biologically female and we create a space where everyone can identify how they feel comfortable and be able to compete. And often in this argument, no one ever talks about people that are transgender men, i.e. females that identify as men and are on testosterone, because basically

they're females and they don't matter. So no one ever talks about them and they're not going to have any impact on male sport. But at the moment, they have nowhere to compete. They can't compete in the female category because they would be banned. And again, they're on synthetic testosterone. So they would probably be banned if they were caught in the men's category. So we need to find a way to be able to include everybody. So I want to come back to some of the points that you raise, both on the science and the solutions. But before I do that, I just want to let people know some of the specifics with you, Sharon. You were competing at 13 years of age in your first Olympics, the 1978 Commonwealth Games.

They were a big moment. East Germany would not be. No East Germans. No East Germans in it, just to underline that fact for our younger listeners. You won gold in the 200 and the 400 metre individual races. You went on to win silver in the 1980 Olympics. That was Petra Schneider who won gold, East German, as we mentioned. And after the fall of the Berlin Wall, then the level of doping that went on became widely known and you don't blame Petra personally but you do want to see the record put right I'm wondering how did you feel what what age were you then in 1980 when you lost? I went off to university for a while in America you know and I've been training six hours a day for nearly 10 years of my life so I just needed needed a break. And in those days, you couldn't do that. And what was also ridiculous was that we were kind of changing the understanding of amateur and professional rules. So you'll probably remember Seb Coe and Steve Overett were racing each other continually on the track.

And they had trust funds in track and field. And so they were allowed to earn money, put it into a trust fund and pay their living expenses. I wasn't allowed to do that even though we were competing the same Olympic Games so when I came back from university in America I did a TV show called Give Us a Clue got paid 40 quid and I got branded a professional and wasn't allowed to compete for eight years so obviously I would love to have been in the 84 Olympics you know which again would have been free of all the eastern block and so it was really really strange times um yes i mean i was

competing quite young um i think that was what was of the time as well i mean now our swimmers are a lot older we give lottery funding which makes a massive difference you know can they be properly athlete proper athletes with with professional backing however you know we still have a massive um discrepancy between male and female professional athletes in this country, for example, which is another thing I talk about in the book. You know, we have a thousand female athletes in this country who earn their living from sport. We have nearly 11,000 men that earn their living from sport. I mean, you know, there's so many things that we just have no equality in. But when I was reading your book, you know, I thought your anger might be directed towards Petra, for example, who got the gold.

No, I didn't think it was. I felt most of your anger was directed towards those in power. The IOC. Yeah, at the top of sporting federations, whether that's Olympic or others. So that is accurate, I think you're saying. Oh, absolutely. I mean, they were pawns, weren't they, Nuala? They were young girls, you know, some as young as 11 that were put on this terrible, you know, testosterone, which had huge nasty side effects. Many of them now have heart problems, liver problems,

kidney problems, sterility problems. Many of them have died. Several of them have disabled children. You know, the results that have come from the drugs that they were given because they were pawns, you know, they were pawns in a political system used to create propaganda and for them, you know, the East German bloc to wave a flag and say, look how successful we are. Everybody knew they were cheating. You know, everybody, it was obvious, you know, these girls would come out of nowhere. They had very masculine physiques. Very sexy voices. And they had no male success. So it was very obvious. We just couldn't catch them. And the IOC did nothing to catch them. So at the same time as obviously cheating people like myself out of those awards they were very much doing a massive disservice to these young east germans and in fact

craig lord who has co-written the book with me he's a he's a journalist with the times his wife was one of those kind of guinea pigs that they used in in east germany to practice what was the right doping what worked what didn't work before they gave it to athletes that they thought had slightly more promise um but you know if you imagine they can make a nine percent improvement nine percent is absolutely massive when we win races by hundreds of a second that's half the length of the pool so if you take nine percent away from Petra Schneider she would have been 16 seconds behind me beating me by 10 seconds you know so it's... And that German record, when they unified in 89, the Germany decided to adopt those records.

That record still stands to this day in Germany. And I understand that you would like history rewritten, whatever way you want to use it. No, I would like history acknowledged. Yes, okay. That's a better word. That's a better word.

Yeah. But I was wondering, have you ever thought about joining those sporting federations, be it the IOC, and try and effect change from within? Because you have to tow an IOC line and I would not be prepared to do that.

Unfortunately, things like the Athletes' Commission, it's a stepping stone to wanting to be on the IOC board and part of the inner circle. to wanting to be on the IOC board and part of the inner circle. And that means towing the IOC line. And I do not agree with the IOC line in so many things. OK.

I'd rather speak out against it than I would tow the line and be paid a nice big fat salary. The IOC, just to also give part of their statement, really, when it comes to the framework on transgender athletes. This was released in November 2021.

They state there should be no assumption, sorry, no assumption that a transgender athlete automatically has an unfair advantage in female sporting events and that places responsibility on individual federations to determine eligibility criteria

in their sport. And I spoke about how some of them are changing. But I do want to go back to the science, Sharon, that we were talking about a little bit earlier. Which was the point of the book. You know, I wanted to put all the science in one place as a massive reference for everyone, you know, to be able to pick it up and get it and read it and join the dots, really. And you've spoken a little there about testosterone or T as it's often referred to.

But British Cycling, when British Cycling announced that they will ban trans women, the chief executive John Dutton said this. He said, we acknowledge the paucity of research at this time, but can only look at what's available to use. So it appears he doesn't seem to think there is a definitive scientific stance his organisation can work off. I mean, do you acknowledge there's still a desire to understand more about the science in relation to this issue? Yeah, of course. I mean, science is always developing, you know, and that's the point. However, we shouldn't be using women's sport as that experiment. So you say that the science is

lacking, but however, we have 18 peer-reviewed studies in the world and not a single one of those 18 peer-reviewed studies says that we can remove male puberty advantage and the last one came out of Brazil after 14 years of reduced testosterone and still there was a very large male advantage physical advantage so in effect 15 to 14 years of reducing testosterone we can see that i'm not sure how much more evidence you really need to actually say we should not be turning around and presuming that there's not an advantage and also if we have male and female competition for very obvious reasons you're literally saying well we should just that doesn't that that holds no credit that holds no water and again we know that's ridiculous because we have 100 years of results, you know, and as I mentioned, a difference of between 10 and 30 percent.

So the more explosive an event is, the bigger the advantage to being male. Explosive, for example, powerlifting. You mean the power, the force that you need to execute that. For example, boxing, you know, which would be be incredibly dangerous putting a male in with a female. A male of equal weight, so not bigger, but of equal weight hits 160% harder onto a less dense bone frame as well. Because again, females have a less dense bone structure. As I read your book, because in boxing,

I believe male competitors, they basically boycotted on fighting trans men. And I wondered why you don't think you have that same solidarity from female athletes, that they just don't say, I'm not getting in the pool. I know. Well, they had tried it. I think it happened a little bit with the women's cycling. When last year, Emily bridges was was trying to enter one of the competitions the girls got together behind the scenes um and they spoke to their governing bodies they spoke to the uci which is the international cycling federation and that was um it was put off and then eventually british cycling you know made decision that they've made fairly recently. At the moment, we're still waiting for the International Federation.

And there's 50 trans-identifying males at the moment competing in North America that are dominating women's cycling right now. And what I was always trying to stop was us having to have a Leah Thomas in every sport. I never really understood why do we have to... And I'll just explain, forgive forgive me Sharon um who Leah Thomas is yes so Leah Thomas was a swimmer that transitioned in America and competed at the NC2A's which is the collegiate championships in America very big very big important competition because a lot of international athletes train at universities in the state and get scholarships and Leah went from being a very very mediocre male athlete in the 1500 metres to all of a sudden competing in the sprints events in the women's within one year and beating three Olympic silver medalists.

So this is someone who as a male who'd swum as a competitive male for 22 years of their life would never get anywhere near even getting to the NCAA championships nc2a champion at six foot four and so what i was trying to say was we shouldn't have to have somebody like this as an example of there being a biological difference between male and females before we acknowledge that fact well on those two points um for example about leah writing last year the olympic silver medalist erica sullivan because we're talking about athletes whether they agree with you or not. Erica Sullivan said, speaking about fellow swimmer Leah Thomas, as you mentioned the first transgender athlete to win a highest

national college title in the States said, Leah has trained diligently to get to where she is. She's followed all of the rules and the guidelines put before her. Like anyone else in this sport, Leah doesn't win every time and when she does, she deserves, like anyone else in this sport, Leah doesn't win every time. And when she does, she deserves, like anyone else in this sport,

to be celebrated for her hard-won success, not labelled a cheater simply because of her identity. Yeah, and everyone's entitled to their view. However, if you do polls of women athletes,

if you do polls of athletes, that's not what you get. You get, in the 90s, people percentage-wise saying, no, we believe this is unfair so of course Erica is totally entitled to her opinion as part of the LGBT community which she is she's you know allowed her opinion but I believe that we should ask all female athletes and when we did do that which took seven years before any governing body actually

asked their female athletes how they felt about being involved in unfair sport, we had a resounding result which said, no, we believe that we should have fair sport. And so, you know, that and the Sports Council two years ago did a massive report, which took them extremely long time to do. And they said in that report that you could not have inclusion of transgender women and fairness in women's sports. Just with Erica Sullivan as well, the Olympian, I should say she lost to Leah Thomas but feels that way. Also, I should

for our listeners say with you here today, Sharon, that it's an interview discussing the issues you've written about in your book. It's common on Woman's Hour for us to discuss the issues with both sides on when we're talking about... When we're talking, we usually with both sides on when we're talking about. Yeah, when we're talking, we usually have both sides on when we're talking about how trans rights impact natal women's rights.

But we are I'm putting across, of course, some of the views that I hear on the other side. But I wonder when you talk about all those women that you say signed up and agreed female athletes with your point of view but many you know aren't going public and I wondered if perhaps there's a generational divide when it comes to opinions about this no there isn't um you hit the nail on the head earlier with our previous interview you absolutely hit the nail on the head women are being intimidated into not being able to. I mean, you know, we've had people have been giving their sport up because they just feel they're running into a brick wall and they can't get anyone. They can't be heard. I have parents of children at primary school at the moment,

which is another area that we really have to worry about is the pathways and young kids as well. They're saying that primary schools now are having unisex races because people are worried about, you know, the PC implications. So little girls are coming away from sports days, all of them winning nothing. What sort of message is that giving to 11-year-old children, you know, 11-year-old girls going into the world? I mean, this is not what we're doing. Can I get your thoughts on this? This is from last week.

You might have heard that there was a leaked government draft guidance seen by the Sun newspaper that said children could be prevented from playing competitive sports in school if they use pronouns that don't match their sex. This includes the they pronoun. What's your reaction to that? Are you willing to see children who use even the they pronoun excluded from all competitive sport? Of course not. And if you actually read what was put in that report carefully, they didn't say are banned from sport. They said we'll have to race for their biological sex. So nobody's banned from sport.

So again, this is a very emotive language that gets used a lot by mainstream media, this word banned. Nobody's trying to ban anybody. They're just trying to say that biological females are worthy of fair sport. That's it in a nutshell, you know, and we have to find better solutions, open categories, extra categories, whatever that solution is. However, females are not, should not be kicked by the side and told they're not worthy of fair sport anymore. May I put in one other aspect? This is the transgender cyclist Emily Bridges.

After British Cycling announced they'd be banning her and other trans women from the female category, she claimed British Cycling was furthering a genocide against us. She said, bans from sport is how it starts. I'd like your reaction to that and particularly about the fact, and people will bring this up, that you're marginalising small groups, that, you know, these are people that have already been discriminated against in society. Yeah. And again, I will come back to the fact that no one ever asked a female athlete how she feels about being told she can no longer be in that final because her place has

been taken by someone who's biologically male or her place on the podium or her university scholarship or her ability to put her success on her CV when she goes for a job application. You know, this is a form of sex discrimination, and it's ridiculous to pretend that sex, biological sex, does not exist, because it does. Sharon, do you ever feel like giving up? Do you ever wake up one morning and say, this is too much, I'm ready to throw in the towel?

There are times when it is hard, obviously, particularly when it affects my family. But, you know, I'm ready to throw in the towel. There are times when it is hard, obviously, particularly when it affects my family. But, you know, I'm really lucky. I've had this incredible career and opportunities that have come from my sporting success. And I saw friends who didn't get that. And I do not want another generation of young girls to suffer the same way.

I believe that we're entitled to our opportunities. Unfair play. That is the battle for women's sport. My guest is Sharon Davies. Thanks so much. We're going to move on now on Woman's Hour to a condition that's not talked about a lot.

Doctors are calling for better support and also care for the thousands of women whose lives are devastated by anal incontinence after childbirth. New research reveals more than 20% of women who give birth vaginally experience anal incontinence. And as you can imagine, it can devastate their personal and professional lives. The team discovered missed opportunities in getting a diagnosis, no clear pathway to get treatment, and a lack of awareness among not only healthcare professionals but also mothers themselves

who often keep it a secret. On the line we have joining us Associate Professor at the University of Warwick Medical School and GP Dr Sarah Hillman who led the research and Anna Clements who experienced severe injuries during the birth of her third child and has anal incontinence.

She now works for MESIC it's a foundation which supports women who are badly injured having their babies. You're both so welcome. Thanks for joining us on Woman's Hour. Let me start with you, Dr. Sarah Hillman. Perhaps you could explain it. I mean, we know if we hear anal or faecal incontinence, but how common is it? How does it come about? Yeah, absolutely. So probably it might be best just to explain exactly what anal incontinence is. So anal incontinence is actually a collection of symptoms. It's the inability to control your wind, urgency to get to the toilet in time,

which might result in some soiling or having an accident. So it's a collection of problems. And you're quite right in saying that it's actually more common than we really consider. So up to one in five women will develop it in the first five years after having a vaginal birth. And it's often caused by something called obstetric anal sphincter injury. So that's something that can happen to the muscle around the bottom when you give birth. And that can there can be all sorts of reasons why you might be at higher risk of something like that. For instance, if you've undergone a forceps delivery, if you're an older mum, if your baby is bigger or actually there's some ethnic differences in that women of Indian or Pakistani origin are actually more likely to sustain that sort of injury as well. But as you've pointed out, there's much lower level awareness of this condition, not just amongst healthcare professionals,

but also women themselves. And there is definitely a stigma or taboo attached to the condition, which is something that we really want to rectify. You have also said that some women have been told that it's normal after childbirth, is it? Yeah. So in the research that we conducted at Warwick Medical School, I co-led this with Professor Deborah Bigg. What we found was that women felt that sometimes when they raised their problems, they were normalized and they felt therefore it's dismissed. There's a difference between something being a common condition and something being normal. So yeah, as we've said, that this is actually much more common than we recognize, but it isn't normal to have those symptoms.. But it isn't normal to have those symptoms. And it certainly isn't something that women should be putting up with.

And I think if women feel that those symptoms are normalised, they're far less likely to come back to a healthcare professional and tell them about them a second time. Let me bring in Anna, who has lived through this Anna thanks for joining us um did you know about it and this was after the birth of your third child that that you have experienced it yeah that's right so good morning morning morning I um yeah I didn't know at all I so I went into labour over a decade ago and um I was completely unaware of any anything that would be so severe that would cause this this injury and then go on to to lead to incontinence it was something that i hadn't been aware of sort of antenatally no one had ever said to me i'd never heard it from sort of family

or or friends or any of the mum's groups that I'd previously been to, there was nothing that made me aware of these severe birth injuries. So you had the injury after the birth, and I understand you did have surgery immediately after. So talk me through that. Yeah, so now I know that I was actually I was one of the lucky ones that gets picked up straight away, which is a whole other story um but yeah I I um they knew straight away that I'd had a fourth degree tear and took me to surgery where I had um a repair um and then I went on to so so many women actually

who do have um a fourth or third or a fourth degree tear and do get this repair will have a good outcome and not necessarily be incontinent. I was one of those ones that would go on to be anally incontinent. already because of having my repairs right away that I would see a colorectal team and physios and then go on to have something called a sacral nerve stimulator which or modulator it which is um it's like a little pacemaker that goes into the into your buttock and the um the wires are connected to your sacral nerve and all these things help to to give me some kind of control over my incontinence. So with this you know that surgery did not work as well as you would have hoped that it would and I'm wondering what the impact has been like you talk about a decade you know since since this happened yeah the impact's been pretty tough actually so um I mean not only just

physical you've got the emotional side where I'm just constantly anxious um I don't want to leave the house because I'm gonna have an accident or I think I'm gonna constantly anxious. I don't want to leave the house because I'm going to have an accident or I think I'm going to have an accident. And, you know, these things happen. It has happened. I've been in the supermarket and had an accident and had to, you know, go to the disabled toilet, completely change my clothes in front of my daughter. You know, and then I've been walking her to school.

I've had to borrow her uniform, her school jumper to tie around my waist. There's just been lots of things that have really sort of affected me emotionally since having this. You know, just even queuing up if I, you know, I break winds in the queue and everybody's looking around. And it's the kind of thing that you shouldn't have to be thinking about. You should be able to take for granted that your body will function and hold on to, you know, your basic functions of continence. So, yeah, it is. I mean, financially as well and, you know, socially and with relationships. I've been lucky that I've been open and honest and had a really good relationship with my husband and my family. But I know that this isn't the norm.

This, you know, this is where it gets really tough to hold this relationship together and any relationship socially. I was thinking about you just as I was preparing to speak to you today. You know, it's almost become kind of cute, funny, you know, if there is urine incontinence, for example, you know, that they have the tenor, what other brands are available, you know, people talk about trampolining or yoga class and there's ads on the television. You don't see ads for this. No, you don't. I mean mean it's not it's not glamorous is it at all and and it has gone past the stage it's too taboo to actually giggle about a little bit of um urine leakage and i'm not making light of it at all because i know how severe that can be

um but it is it's it's never it's never raised it's never something that you hear about and so we're so grateful that this research has been done to raise awareness. Very briefly, let me go back to you and thank you, Anne, for sharing your story. I can imagine it must be difficult, but there you are. That's what you're doing, raising awareness. Dr. Sarah Hillman, to go back to you. I mean, what should women do if this happens to them? Or what would you also like to see healthcare providers do?

Yeah, well, I think part of what we found in the research was that there was lots of missed opportunities. So, for instance, there was missed opportunities for getting a diagnosis, either because symptoms were normalized or women felt dismissed, or there was perhaps a prioritization of the baby's needs over mum's. But there was also lots of missed opportunities around information sharing. So lots of women felt that they didn't get fully informed about their injury, there was a lack of a debrief after they'd had an injury. As you rightly pointed out, there was a lot of focus on bladder rather than bowel symptoms as well. And the fact that none of this information seems to be going through antenatally and then finally we found that there was a lack of continuity and timeliness of care so people weren't getting care at the

right time and there was all they were also really lacking any sort of continuity so that might be the fact that things weren't picked up at the six-week check or it might be at the GPs or it might be that they were constantly on waiting lists and chasing services or they got often got stuck between different specialisms so we had lots of women saying that they got referred to both a gynecologist and a colorectal surgeon and I think there was one quote in our research that said one was looking at the front to the middle and the other one was looking at my vagina to my bottom. And nobody was looking at everything overall. And women really feeling like they need this holistic care. So what we're really calling for is the fact that we strongly want this to be asked about, checked about in the six to eight week check. And we certainly know that the NHS England is

planning on renewing that. So in the single delivery plan for maternity and neonatal services, they've said that they are going to renew their guidance. So it'd be great to see an emphasis on making sure that anal incontinence is asked about. But we're also looking for clearer pathways for women and equitable pathways for women. We know that there's a postcode lottery. We know that we need this to be focused on all women. So we make sure there's a focus on socioeconomic and ethnicity factors as well and make sure that all women get access to the care that they need in a timely fashion. So that's what we're asking for.

Yes, and I think when we hear, as we did from Anna Clements, it just puts it very much in stark reality what she's going through. Thanks so much for sharing your story, Anna, and thanks also to Dr. Sarah Hillman. Now, I want to move on to Rosamund Pike. She made her breakthrough film role as a Bond girl in Die Another Day and followed that with Pride and Prejudice, Maiden Dagenham, Jack Reacher, Private War. That's just won an award for Best Female Narrator for her narration of the first book in The Wheel of Time novels by Robert Jordan. And she's currently playing the role of Connie, a woman who fakes her own death in a BBC audio adaptation of the book People Who Knew Me. Is this a move? I have to ask her away from film and more towards audio. Rosamund, welcome. Hi, Nuala. It's lovely to be here.

And what fascinating conversations I've just been listening to as well. And I really applaud Anna for her bravery and courage in speaking out. I found I had great compassion and I found it very moving that she has the courage to talk so freely. Absolutely. And I had not heard somebody talk about it before. So I very much echo your sentiments. Let me turn to people who knew me. I'm addicted.

I'm in it. I'm there. I was with you all last night and a little bit of this morning if I tell the truth. This is about a woman called Connie who is a little prickly, very strong, has a lot to hide. This dialogue, etc., or monologue maybe at times. What was it like to play her?

Well, People Who Knew Me is a, I mean, as soon as I knew the premise, the idea that a woman would use the national tragedy of 9-11 to fake her own death and escape a lie, a web of lies that she's already implicated in because she's having an extramarital affair and she is in bed in her lover's apartment that everybody who knew her or knows her will assume that she was at work and will have been killed in the tragedy and she sees an opportunity to run away and that means leaving a husband who will believe she's dead leaving parents parents-in-law all of that. And it came to light that people believe that there are at least sort of five or six people who have done this, who did this. And the idea is obviously haunting and compelling. And I've always been interested in how lies seem like an easy way out of something, but actually the way they gather energy and momentum, you just get trapped

in a deeper and deeper web of lies. And so that's Connie. So Connie, who's escaped New York, living in LA in Topanga Canyon with the baby that she was pregnant with at the time of the tragedy, who is now 14. And we flip back and forth. It is immersive, brilliant sound design. And at times it feels like I'm up close and personal. You know, in public radio in the States, they often call these driveway moments that you just can't leave. And that's what this whole podcast is in 15 minute episodes. You can't be doing anything else. You need to sit down and you need to listen or walk and listen. How did you create that? What is it like to be an actor making that? I think I read that you have mics on headbands. Well, Daniela Isaacs, who's an actress herself and a writer

and a director, brilliant woman, who adapted the novel, she came up with this idea that she wanted the show to feel like you were uncomfortably eavesdropping on conversations that you really shouldn't have access to and to get that intimacy and also feel the awkwardness. I know she went back over our edits and asked the editor to leave in awkward pauses or the feeling that a character takes a breath and can't speak or you feel the choking of a thought before someone utters it. So we wore these very unattractive headbands on our heads with a little radio mic

attached to it and a wire going through our clothes into a pocket. So it meant we were completely free. And in that environment, you can do all the things you can't normally do on radio, embrace someone or, you know, eat something or sit down or hug yourself. Because I mean, that's one of the no-nos, isn't it, of wearing a radio mic. You can't even, you know, put your hands to your chest because you'll bang the mic. So we were really, really free and obviously free in another way because we didn't have to be looked at, which is also another wonderful freedom. I have to talk about all of that, you know, to give. I was trying to put my finger on it exactly what it was evoking for me. But it's something like the way the West Wing was groundbreaking in TV when that came out and I had to kind of give it my full attention.

That's kind of the feeling I get from it in the sense of the speed and intensity of emotion that's going back and forth. I do have somebody who got in touch talking about that they are an actor and did a voiceover course in lockdown when theatres and filming stopped, and now they just love it. It's Francesca, and she says, you can create such different images in people's minds with just your voice. I can be 14 or 40,

and I never need to worry about hair and makeup. Tell me your experience of it. Well, in this adaptation, I play Emily, who was Connie's previous identity when she lived in New York and when she made this life-changing decision. So I play, you know, messy 20-year-old, 20-something-year-old Emily, you know, who's just a recent university graduate getting her first job, living with her husband in New York, getting her Winona Ryder pixie haircut. And then I also play Connie Prynne, which is her new name, you know, this Topanga Canyon mum. And I also have the ability to be her internal monologue, which is a different voice again. It's the voice that we, you know, try and silence,

the voice we can't hide from, the voice we, you know, who can't lie because it's what, you know, our truth really. So obviously if it was a film adaptation, we would never get the internal monologue and I could never play the girl in her 20s. So, you know, that's a lovely freedom. But I can make my voice sound like it's in its 20s, but I can't, you know, unfortunately do that with my face.

Do you feel a move towards audio? We're all audio lovers here, obviously. I'm an audio lover. I've done 80 plus hours of recording the Wheel of Time novels, which is the series I'm working on for Amazon. I know my voice is cracking today, but that's because I'm in the middle of a junket rather than somebody who's ill-experienced at radio.

But I think you have an intimacy with your listeners. I've always been a radio lover. And I know from recording people and interviewing people myself that there is a freedom. People don't imagine the hundreds and hundreds of ears listening to them like they imagine the hundreds and hundreds of pairs of eyes on them. So people are free to speak in a different way. And maybe it's, you know, the old thing.

You know, I grew up in a time when, you know, the landline, you could pick up a landline extension and listen in to someone's phone call, you know, people don't have that privilege anymore. And I think that eavesdropping quality was sort of instilled in me very young, you know, the things that you could hear by, as long as the phone didn't betray you with a click. Exactly. Gosh, I forgot all about that, but totally. And, you know, as they say, the best pictures are on radio,

which you are, or podcast, should I say, at this point as well. Oh, here's a comment. Let me see. If you think Rosamund is good in People Who Knew Me, try listening to her

in Pride and Prejudice. It's absolutely brilliant. I've lost count of the times I have listened to it. Thank you, Rosamund. You've got me through many a dark. Thank you, Rosamund. You've got me through many a dark night. And also so many people are getting in touch

with their favourite narrators. Annie Aldington is a fantastic narrator. She's my favourite. She knows it. I started listening to audiobooks because just holding a book and following the words is a challenge and words can become blurry and I lose concentration.

It makes me more exhausted. This person has ME, as they say. We had lots of people saying, let me see, Juliet Stevenson, Miriam Margolis. What about that, about being a narrator and also, I suppose, the way that people feel they know you? I mean, I feel it after listening to all those episodes of People Who Knew Me. I mean, on one level, if they know your face, it's not a distraction when they're only hearing your voice. You know, Hugh Laurie, for instance, is in People Who Knew Me. Now, if it was me and Hugh Laurie, you know, and you could see us,

you know, who knows? You might buy us completely or there might be a freedom to a listener. We can look however you want us to look. You know, you're not tied into our visual. You've got that imagination plus, you know, plus your ear to create your own pictures. So I always feel that listening to an audiobook is, you absorb information in exactly the same way as you do when you read it. And that's what my job is when I do an audiobook is to create pictures. And you have to see it.

It's why you have to prep it so much, because you have to know where the thought is going. You have to know the whole picture you're establishing. You have to know what the purpose of that picture is in the book so that you're giving a listener the whole thing and you're living it. That's the wonderful thing. Thank you to the person who mentioned Pride and Prejudice because, you know, you live all these Bennett sisters. You live Mrs. Bennett. And it's so private and you're so free. You can live it just as vividly as you can on screen. And I think it's really interesting hearing this list of favorite narrators, how many screen actors find this great comfort and excitement in doing audio only. Well, we love having you on the podcast, people who knew me. I still have to finish it, but I did a lot of episodes yesterday and I can't wait to get back to it.

It's quite moving at the end, I tell you. I mean, you know, it's amazing how vivid and real it became and how in the final moments, everything was as real to me as if I was acting it. I couldn't bear it. I kind of couldn't. I felt I was Connie and I couldn't bear it for her. Rosamund, I have to leave it there, but they are our last moments, Rosamund Pike.

Thank you so much. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Jason Manford here and I'm Steve Edge we just wanted to tell you about our new podcast from Radio 4

on BBC Sound Best Men it's called and it's all about one of the most important jobs a fella can face in his lifetime being a best man

we were each other's best men we were so we know all about the pressures of this honourable but daunting and all-consuming role. In this podcast, we'll be meeting the people

who've succeeded in helping their best pal through the most important day of their lives. And, crucially, those that have failed. Hearing some unbelievable stories of stag-do disasters, of speeches that have silenced the room, and about friendships that were never quite the same afterwards. We'll also be trying to help those going through this particular trauma over the coming months, as well as exploring the importance

of that special friendship between best man and the group. And hopefully having a bit of a laugh along the way. It's a bit like a good wedding. You will not want to miss it. So give it a listen, and you can subscribe to Best Men right now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies.

I 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.