Woman's Hour - Amanda Knox, COP26, Kathleen Stock, Lily Cole

Episode Date: November 6, 2021

Fourteen years ago this week, 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher was sexually assaulted and killed in a brutal attack in her apartment in the Italian city of Perugia. As the world's media descended, a narrative quickly emerged around Amanda Knox - Meredith’s American flatmate - and her then boyfriend Rafaele Sollecito. After being found guilty and serving four years in prison, Amanda was fully exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court on appeal in 2015. Amanda Knox talks to Emma about trying to restore her reputation, losing control of her identity, and speaking out.The starting gun has fired on COP26 - we hear from Laurence Tubiana, France's Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21, and Amber Rudd - Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change at the time of Paris and the then leader of the UK's COP21 negotiating team.Kathleen Stock was, until last week, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex. In the last few years she has become better known for her gender critical views, contributing to the highly charged public debate over trans rights and what she and others see as the re-defining of the word ‘woman’. She gives an exclusive interview to Emma Barnett.We meet the first woman to write a James Bond novel. Award-winning author Kim Sherwood is to write three new books set in the iconic world of James Bond.

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. This is your chance to hear some of the best bits from across the week, from the programme that offers the female perspective on the world. Coming up, an exclusive interview with Kathleen Stock. Until last week, she was a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex. But in the last few years, Kathleen has become better known for her views on sex and gender. We hear from former model Lily Cole, who's using her platform to

highlight climate change, plus research engineer Dr Yumna Mohammed, who's designed a comb that makes the job of conditioning afro hair a less painful and more enjoyable experience. Coming from an African background, every Sunday my mum will sit me and my four sisters and actually do my hair. So for me, hair care is actually that moment of connecting with different women, you know, of my family giggling. And also that pain actually affects our relationship with our hair because when something is so frustrating to deal with, you end up despising it. More on that later.

But first, Amanda Knox, a woman whose name became synonymous with a terrible tragedy and who is still trying to reclaim her identity and the truth. Fourteen years ago this week, British student Meredith Kircher was sexually assaulted and killed in a brutal attack in her apartment in Italy. She was just 21. Her death was shocking and horrendous for her family, but sadly Meredith Kircher did not become the most memorable name in the investigation that followed. Amanda Knox was Meredith's American flatmate, and prosecutors, under global pressure to solve the crime,

focused on Amanda and her boyfriend of a few days, Rafael Salachito. As the world's media descended, a narrative quickly emerged of a sexually voracious femme fatale and her accomplice, who they said had killed Meredith in a drug-fuelled sex game gone wrong. Amanda was dubbed Foxy Noxy by the media. Aged 20, thousands of miles from home, with only a basic grasp of Italian, Amanda was interrogated by police for hours and hours without a lawyer or interpreter, during which she implicated a man

who was later released and signed a statement that placed her at the crime scene, which she then recanted. Despite the separate arrest, conviction and imprisonment of Rudy Guede for the crime, his DNA was found all over the crime scene. Amanda was also found guilty and sentenced to 26 years. She was freed on appeal in 2011 after four years in prison. After another trial reinstated her conviction, the Italian Supreme Court presided over an appeal which fully exonerated her in 2015 and pointed to glaring errors in the original investigation. Amanda now lives back in Seattle, is married and has just had a baby.

She's built a career as a writer, podcaster and campaigner. However, a decade on from her prison release, she says she's not able to restore her reputation or take back control of her story. She's got a particularly complicated relationship with the British media and hasn't conducted a UK interview for years, but has been compelled to speak out because of a new film, Stillwater, starring Matt Damon, which she says drew on and profited

from her experience without her consent. Emma spoke to Amanda Knox earlier this week and began by asking her about her problem with that Hollywood film. I wanted to take it as an opportunity to point out a few problems with the way that my case and many other, like, based on a true story cases are treated in not just the courtroom and not just the media, but also in Hollywood. How the most traumatic experiences of people's lives

are treated like grist for a content mill and are treated as entertainment products. So there are a number of problems that I had with Stillwater. First of all, they used my name and my face to publicize a film that they then said was fictionalized, so it shouldn't reflect upon who I am or what the outcome of the case was. However, the Amanda Knox character in their film was treated as indirectly involved in the murder of her roommate who she had in a sexual affair with. And my pushback was, Hollywood has for a long time hidden behind the safety of this like veil of fictionalization, while at the same time, being able to exploit real people's stories and point to those real people's stories

in order to sell their product. But furthermore, there was this issue of how my whole case has always been treated as my case, right? Like it's always been a little bit about me and Amanda Knox when I absolutely had nothing to do with this crime. And I wanted to point out how the identities, like how we talk about real life tragedies, and how we name them really matters. There was a real human being who was murdered, Meredith Kircher, and there was a real human being who murdered her, Rudy Gaudet. And very often, we don't hear those names associated with this tragedy, we hear about me. And, you know, the way that I would present this case to the world is one in which put me as a very peripheral character, because I was, I didn't have a lot of agency.

I happened to be thrown into the middle of this story and treated like this central figure when I really wasn't. Did anyone ever approach you from Tom McCarthy's office, the director, Matt Damon, who stars in it? Anyone ever been in touch? Have they been in touch since you said what you've said and written what you've written about this? No. And what I found interesting about that was I did a little digging. I haven't seen the film, but I did a little digging. And they went through the trouble of going to Oklahoma and meeting with a number of men from that community in order to get a grasp of like who their personality is and what, you know, what is that tribe of people and how do they politically present themselves in America and in the broader world. So they went through a lot of trouble to humanize the Matt Damon character, but they didn't bother to even reach out to me to talk about the Amanda Knox character in their film. And I think that was because a lot of people think of me not

really as a human being, but as an idea of a person, as like a tabloid entity that they can sort of constantly refer back to without actually engaging with as a real human being. And how do you deal with that? Because you are obviously a real person. And, you know, when you when you first found out Matt Damon was going to star in this film that had been loosely based on you, and as you say, used you to promote it and your image and you were talked about, what's your reaction to that, even if it's not the first time? Well, my reaction is to try not to live reacting, right? Like I have my own life. I try to do a lot of good work in the world. And, you know, I have a podcast called Labyrinths. I have all of this work that I do. I do journalism.

And I'm constantly trying to not feel like I am perpetually engaging with the content mill that's trying to treat me like a product that can just be consumed over and over and over again in various ways. That said, my first thought was, oh, no. Yet again, another thing. Who knows how they're going to treat this story? Are they going to be thinking about it in a really nuanced way? Or are they going to be treating it once again in this black and white, like, did she or didn't she sexy, salacious narrative? And then lo and behold, I come to discover that they've basically taken the most salacious version of the case against me and turned it into yet another consumable product.

So I was greatly disappointed. At the same time, my world does not revolve around reacting to how this is happening to me. It's more me thinking about how easy it is that human beings' identities are stolen for the entertainment industry, and what it takes, what truly it takes for someone to define their own life, despite the broader narrative that's around them. I have found it to be incredibly, incredibly difficult to be a definitive voice in my own life because I sort of started at a disadvantage. I was four years in prison with tons of people writing and

authoring my experience and saying who I was as a human being. So I came into the free world without really having a grasp over my own identity and over my own reality even. Like the fact that I was convicted for a crime that I didn't commit truly, truly, truly imprinted upon me the fact that sometimes the truth doesn't matter. Sometimes the story is the thing that matters and what people really grasp onto. And the consequences, real human lives are lost in the process. Let's engage on at least the level of reality. And if we can't engage on that front, then it's just not worth it. It's too much emotional pain for me, honestly. Let's come to the fact that you're talking to me, you're talking to us in the UK. This is your first interview in the UK for a number of years. And I know that your relationship, if I could

call it that, with the UK media, well, you tell me about it, because where a lot of people have got their information from are our newspapers and our tabloids at that. And, you know, phrases like names like Foxy Noxy are forever more associated with you because of some of those early reports and leaks and bits of information, if I could call it that, that was posited as such. I think that my relationship, obviously, with the Italian media and the British media is Italy accountable to the truth. And that didn't happen. And it still is an ongoing problem, which is why I still talk about this. Like, I could have stopped talking about this long ago if the people who were responsible for how this entire case spiraled out of control, we're accountable to the truth

and we're held accountable for how so much misinformation was spread. And that still hasn't happened. And the tabloids are still a very successful ongoing industry. And it's sort of become my mission to point out that like we as consumers are in part responsible for how we were misled.

And we're the ones with the power to stop this consumption cycle. We don't have to engage with misinformation. We can, in fact, ask our journalists to be better. If a case like this happened today, 14 years on, do you think it would be any different? Has it got any better? Has it got worse? I'm thinking of the fact that in the intervening years, the Me Too movement has happened, and voices have been heard perhaps in slightly different ways. What do you think? It's interesting. I would hope, hope that people would be more skeptical about that portrayal of events today. That said, I do think that social media was already quite active at the time

of my case and had a huge impact in how the case played out. And if anything, it has become even more about tribalism, which is also a big problem that happened in my case, where like people vehemently stood for one side or the other. So like there is this interesting like confirmation bias happening, these echo chambers that are happening where people are unable to reason from an objective standpoint. There's a lot of motivated reasoning. And I feel like that has only become exacerbated today. You must have days where you just think, I just don't want to talk about this anymore. You know, does this really have to be my life? I very much do. Very often I have like, when I feel just like totally overwhelmed and exhausted, I imagine that there could be a life

for me where I just get to disappear and make dresses or, you know, work on cuckoo clocks. Like I'm like that, that would be an, a really cool life to live. Um, I was going to say, have you been thinking a bit more about that since having your, having your daughter, you only recently became a mom. And I wondered if thinking about the future where you don't have to deal with this or talk about that has come more into focus or is it made you go the other way do you think um it's very much made me think about how worried i am that my own daughter is like if i feel like i'm totally sort of overwhelmed by the spotlight of accusation and that my life has sort of been taken over by this horrible experience that happened to me that didn't really come from me i especially worry that my life has sort of been taken over by this horrible experience that happened to me that didn't really come from me, I especially worry that my daughter is going to feel like she is

living in that shadow as well, which is why I've made sort of particular choices to speak about my experience as a mother, but to try to protect her and her agency and her identity as much as possible. I'm not sharing photos of her on social media. I just wanted to ask if I could that I am very aware this week is the anniversary 14 years since Meredith Kircher was murdered. How do you think of her? I don't know if you do anything to mark it or what do you think about when you think of Meredith? Oh, my. I mean, this year, it's funny, all of the years leading up to this, whenever I've thought about this day and this, like remembrance, I've always put myself in Meredith's shoes. And I like I'm sort of haunted by this survivor's guilt kind of thing, where like, if maybe if I had been there, we would have been able to fight him off together. Or maybe we'd both be dead.

I don't know. Those sort of thoughts go through my mind. But this year, this year, I've put myself in Meredith's mom's shoes and how it is not fair. It's not fair and nothing will ever bring Meredith back and nothing will ever take away the painful last moments of her life. And I know from my own mom how much she wished that she could take away the pain from me, that she could take my place. And I know deep down that Meredith's mom would also have wanted to save Meredith from that fate and would have sacrificed herself willingly in her stead.

And I am thinking about that for my own daughter, how I want the world to be a better place for her than it was for me and that it was for Meredith. Amanda Knox speaking to Emma there. Now, the Kircher family gave us this message. There's not a day that goes by where Meredith isn't in our thoughts and after all these years, her loss and the manner of it still cuts deeply and always will. It's something we will never truly get over. We should say that we did approach Focus Features

for a comment on the film but haven't heard back from the company. Now in an ideal world the negotiations taking place across COP26 will lead us to a low carbon future where average global temperatures are kept within habitable limits. Of course, we're not in an ideal world, but there are glimmers of light. Big ideas like net zero emissions and keeping temperature increases below 1.5 degrees Celsius made it to the world stage in 2015 in Paris at COP21. That meeting was steered and shaped by a host of women in key positions, a couple of which spoke to Emma on Tuesday. Laurence Tobiana is the current CEO

of the European Climate Foundation, but formerly France's climate change ambassador and special representative for COP21. She's a woman who many credit as the architect of the Paris Agreement. Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change at the time of Paris and the then leader of the UK's COP21 negotiating team. She now works in the private sector advising on, amongst other things, energy and renewables.

Here's Amber on why diversity and female representation is so important at an event like this. I do share that view. I do think it's important to have women in good numbers, ideally 50%, but at least 30% in any important negotiation. As you sort of highlighted at the start of this show, plenty of studies will demonstrate that you get a more equitable answer and better government in politics, in big negotiations, if you have at least 30% women. So I think that teams that are less than 30% are missing out. And I would have liked the UN to have insisted that all teams had 30% women attendants. You would be more likely to get a fairer outcome. One of the statistics I find so incredible is one from the UN, is that when it comes to climate chaos, which will be forthcoming at this rate, 80% of the people being displaced will be women.

And that is because women tend to be the ones who are at the lower end of the food chain, who are at home, who are looking after families. They're not in the groups of people trying to move around in the first wave. They will be the ones who are being displaced. We need to make sure that women's voices are heard. And it was remarkable at Paris, with Laurence particularly, and with Christiana Figueres, and with Patricia Espinoza, who's also now, of course, playing a role, that the women's voices were very much out there. They were going, were doing the media rounds. They were very, very visible. And if you have a situation where, like for the first day yesterday, we had all the world leaders,

only 6% of world leaders are women. It gives a very male sign. And I think we would do better to have more women at the front of this. And it's great to see that Jennifer is being very visible as well, because we need that so that people realise this is something that's going to happen to women and women need to be part of the solution. So how did we end up do you think with Alok Sharma being the president and then very few women on the British side just thinking about our country? We're the hosts. Well there's two separate issues here. Alok Sharma is the UN president so he's separate in that. The UK team doesn't have enough women. It's not the first time I will have said that.

It's just one would hope it would have got to a different point by now. I agree. I agree. And I mean, you know, the whole issue about climate change is about climate justice. And gender equality is obviously part of climate justice. And so I would much prefer to see the UK team. And they're not the only ones, the UK team. Plenty of other teams are just dominated by men at the top. And there's often a pushback saying, yeah, look how many women we've got in our overall team. It's not good enough. I'd like to see more women at the top team. Laurence, just on that point, you know, how, what is your take

on that women around the table and the importance of that? It's crucial. I can tell it was for me an enormous support in the negotiation for many, many delegations. In some cases, they were playing already a big role, but sometimes not. And I use that network of women all over, across the board during the two weeks. And you know why? Because they were building the trust between us. And you know, trust is an essential factor. If you want, finally, countries' representatives to go beyond the narrow mindset of national interest, which are always short-term. And this is about long-term. And, you know, the women, because they were trusting me and I was trusting her and we were transparent with each other, we could build a trust that finally, in a way, resulted in this explosion of joy of Paris.

And why is this explosion of joy? I'm telling this all the time. Because everyone, every minister, ambassador, whatever, seasoned diplomats were happy to have gone beyond their narrow mandate. They were thinking about the humanity. And they were like human beings, again. And you know, that's why women are so important. Because then they were like human beings again and you know that's why women are so important because then they were human beings and we are not the representative of their

flags and that's why Paris were so we need to connect again and to connect between between human beings to make Glasgow a success and to build the trust needed its leaders are very important of course all the element the practical element needed. Leaders are very important, of course. All the elements, the practical elements, the technical will be very important. But the trust between the people who are trying from now many years, everybody's working on that since 30-something. And you have the young people outside who are coming, pressuring us to say to deliver. And that trust is, I think, a virtue that women can deliver and build. Amber Rudd and Laurence Tobiana.

Kathleen Stock was, until last week, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex. In the last few years, she's become better known for her gender-critical views, contributing to the highly charged public debate over trans rights and what she and others see as the redefining of the word woman. This year, she published a book called Material Girls, Why Reality Matters for Feminism, in which she argues we're in an era of emperor's new clothes, that it isn't possible for people to change their biological sex

and that someone's sex should sometimes take precedence over their gender identity. She's also clear that trans people deserve lives free from fear. They deserve laws and policies that properly protect them from discrimination and violence. But laws and policies based around gender identity are not the right route. Calls for Professor Stock to be removed from her teaching post at Sussex have been increasing by those who adamantly disagree with her, culminating in regular protests and poster campaigns by students on campus over the last few weeks. The university made it clear it would not

sack her and vigorously and unequivocally defended her right to exercise her academic freedom, free from bullying and harassment. Nevertheless, last week she made the decision to leave her job and resign from a post she held for 18 years. Emma started by asking Professor Stock why she resigned from Sussex University. The recent student activity against me has been pretty intense obviously and that's what everyone's seen but it's really the end point in three and a half years of sort of low-level bullying and harassment and reputation trashing from colleagues and I've just had enough of it. Three and a half years? Yeah because that coincides with when I started to write and speak publicly about concerns I had about gender identity policies.

So that's when I got people's attention. A lot of people who, as you say, may have only recently tuned into what's going on with you and what's been going on at your university, what was, will have thought it's about students. But you've just said quite early on their colleagues? Yes it's about both and actually I don't know that the student activity would be there if the colleague activity already hadn't been there. I think this is true of almost every university so Sussex isn't special in this way but there's a small group of people who are absolutely opposed to the sorts of things I say. And instead of getting involved in arguing with me, you know, using reason, evidence, the traditional university methods,

they tell their students in lectures that I pose a harm to trans students or they go onto Twitter and say that I'm a bigot. So they're creating an atmosphere in which the students then become much more extreme and much more kind of empowered to do what they did, I think, to be honest. Well, stoking the fire, you could say. I'm not saying that they intentionally set out to cause this end point, but I do think that academics are treated by students as role models quite often. And if you're in a class as a student and your lecturer is saying, look,

there are some views that are just beyond the pale that should never be debated, that automatically as soon as you say them, then that makes you a bigot. And we need to stop these people from speaking, then I don't know, maybe I'm joining the dots wrongly, but it seems to me that there might be a connection there. And how do you know that your colleagues have done that and are they in your own department well no they're not in my department I know that because you just have to go on to twitter and see you can look at what they've said in the past there's I mean this is a small number of people I'm not saying that like this is the norm for Sussex University which is full of great academics, mostly, but this is a small group of

people who really are quite extreme. And, you know, in departmental meetings, people radically misrepresent my views, saying things like, oh, she thinks all trans women are rapists, or, you know, she's a bigot, she's harmful, she doesn't like trans people. And all of this is totally false, but I am increasingly powerless to change the narrative myself. Was there a moment that you thought enough is enough? Yes, it was when I saw my own union branch's statement, which basically backed the protesters and implicitly made it obvious that they thought I was transphobic and accused Sussex University of institutional transphobia, which can only ever mean that they employed me because it's the most LGBT friendly place you can possibly think of.

So when my own, you know, my former union, because I left them last year precisely for this sort of reason. The University and College Union. Yes, the University and College Union. When union committee members basically back intimidation against you as an employee, then, you know, that's a bit of a blow. To give some more detail from that statement from the University and College Union Sussex branch, released on the 13th of October, it says, In the light of recent events on campus and ensuing public response on social media, we extend our solidarity to all trans and non-binary members of our community who,

now more than ever, should receive the unequivocal support of the university and its management. As a union, we strongly condemn all forms of transphobia and call the University of Sussex leadership to heed its institution's values and commitments as set out in its trans equality statement and its dignity and respect policy. It goes on to say, we do not endorse the call for any worker to be summarily sacked, and we oppose all forms of bullying, harassment and intimidation of staff and students. There should be no contradiction between defending academic freedom and supporting trans rights.

Why did that make you think I've had it, especially if you'd left them? I don't know. I can't really say why that was my personal tipping point. But, I mean, it's basically the mechanism is social ostracism. And I've been at Sussex for 18 years. It's like it was my first permanent job and it felt like home. And, you know, you're being ejected from the tribe, aren't you? That's the whole point. You're an escape goat.

You're being pushed out and it's being done very publicly. It's completely humiliating. And you feel completely powerless to, as I say, to correct the misrepresentations that are constantly coming out about you. So, you know, I think most of the students that have protested against me really haven't got a clue what I actually think. And that's because the adults that are supposed to care about truth haven't told them. And many of them don't really understand what I think. And whenever I hear them talk about it, they misrepresent it. So, you know, you just get to a point where you think, what am I doing this for? And the thought of all these public displays against me. Nobody really wants to stand beside me because they're worried it'll happen to them too.

That's how social ostracism works. So you just feel incredibly alone. And in other universities, this is going on too. But I do know that in some universities, they at least have kind of networks of academics that will stand together. And I've never had that at Sussex. I've had plenty of people say to me via email, I'm so sorry, I would love to be able to, you know, stand with you. And I agree with you. But I'm coming up for promotion, or I'm precarious, or I'm a student. So I've just, you know, I'm a professor, and it's my duty to say what I think. But I've just got to

the point where I just thought it's just not worth my while to stay. You say you think you've written that you cannot alter your biological sex, meaning you don't view trans women as women or trans men as men. That's correct. Strictly speaking, those categories, as far as I'm concerned, and I have presented the arguments in my book, those categories are set up in ways that are not altered by inner feelings of identity. And those categories are there for really good reasons in order to enable humans to pick out really important facts about the human species, which is sexually dimorphic. There's males and there's females. There's older males, men. There's younger males, boys. There's older females, women. There's younger males boys there's older females women there's younger females girls we need those words and those concepts in order to be able to talk about all the different

medical interests or sporting interests or educational interests or you know you name it we need those words so that's what I think but that's completely compatible with protecting trans people in law it's also compatible with going along with what I think. But that's completely compatible with protecting trans people in law. It's also compatible with going along with what I would call a kind of fiction that a trans woman is a woman or a trans man is a man for certain social purposes. That word that you use, fiction, which is a part of your book and one of the bits that you talk about in more detail, what you think's happened and how you think this has developed to the trans and non-binary students who who say that even going there makes them feel unsafe either on campus or in life what do you say to them well I know that it makes them feel unsafe they've been encouraged to feel like that as I say but whether you feel unsafe and whether you are unsafe are two different things. As philosophers, we constantly distinguish between appearances and reality. And my book is not actually making them physically unsafe.

It might be challenging them psychologically, there's no doubt. It is part of life, I'm sorry to say to be challenged psychologically in many ways but I am not actually making them unsafe my words are not and I wouldn't you know if anyone ever presented to me a credible argument or chain of reasoning that could explain to me how I was literally putting people at risk by saying what I just said, then I would care about it. But it's just not the case. And I don't know, it's just hyperbole. So I just hope that in a few years time, these students realise that the world is not as hostile to them as they think it is. And that I was not as hostile to them as they thought I was. Why and what qualifies you to make those arguments? Why is it something that you decided to lean into?

Well, I'm a philosopher, so academic philosophy, the way I was initiated into that tribe, tells you that you can really think about anything. Like, we're quite, I don't know, I wouldn't say arrogant exactly, but we do. There are philosophers that range from ethics to metaphysics to politics. I mean, Aristotle being one of them. So it's pretty standard for philosophers to question things and to come up with ideas about them. And I always, nobody ever had any trouble with me ranging around from fiction to sexual objectification to the meaning of art before. I mean, these are some of the things I've written about before. But, you know, I'm particularly

interested in this. I'm a lesbian and I am a feminist. And I could see that this was a philosophical theory about categories and about identity. And it was a bad one as far as I was concerned, sort of the idea that gender identity is more important than sex. So I thought it was absolutely my duty as a philosopher to start talking about it. I mean, initially I did so when the government had opened a public consultation about gender recognition reform. So we were being invited to give our views. And I did notice that lots of academics were sort of enthusiastically supporting self-ID. No one I knew working in British universities was saying, hang on, there's some big problems with moving to self-ID and getting rid of single-sex exceptions and the Equality Act and all that sort of stuff. And for people who aren't as well-versed as you, you were talking there about, for instance, also women's-only spaces

such as refuges, prisons, hospital wards, sex-based rights for those single-sex environments. Yes, so in 2018, when the government was consulting on this, and pretty much seemed like this was a Tory government wanted to go ahead. One of the things that Stonewall was pushing very hard for was the dropping of the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act, which say that there can be legitimately female only spaces for certain legitimate purposes and female only sports as well. So it felt like an emergency, like this was being really rolled through with a lot of finance backing and kind of institutional establishment backing. And there was grassroots organisations popping up like A Woman's Place UK and Fair Play for Women saying,

hang on, hang on, this is a radical reconception of what a woman is. And, you know, in terms of law and policy, it will have massive impact. And we're not supposed to be even talking about it. So I just wanted to join in. So that's why you went towards this. I think it's worth reminding people kind of when and how some of these debates began and how it came into your life, certainly, as we hear what the ramifications has been, which ultimately has led to you leaving your job. So are you going to run for parliament and what's next no not that i know of um but i mean you are obviously very interested in policy creation yeah that's what

got you into this you're obviously across lots of other areas too not just this area but but what have you thought about doing next well my wife's having a baby I'm going to concentrate on them for a bit but I think in the long run I just want to do something meaningful to me I don't know if that's going to be in academia or not I certainly want to write another book on this subject not exactly this, because I really think I've said everything I could possibly say. But on feminism, on my own idiosyncratic take on many feminist kind of shibboleths, which again will probably annoy quite a lot of feminists. I am a bit of a contrarian, so whatever I come up with will end up annoying somebody, no doubt.

So I want to do that, and then who knows what else. Professor Kathleen Stock speaking with Emma. Sussex police have confirmed that last month they received a report of harassment on an employee at the University of Sussex and have been investigating, kept in touch with the person involved and have discussed her security with her. We approached the University of Sussex, the Sussex branch of the university and college union and Stonewall for statements in response to that interview. A University of Sussex branch of the university and college union, and Stonewall for statements in response to that interview. A University of Sussex spokesperson said, since 2018, the university has both publicly and internally

fully supported Professor Stock's freedom of speech, reinforcing that academic freedom is paramount. We also will not tolerate the bullying and harassment of anyone in our community, and we have been very clear that what Professor Stock experienced by some in our community was unacceptable. In addition, since June 2021, the law has been clarified so that holding gender-critical beliefs are protected in law under the Equality Act and the university has taken additional steps

to reflect this in policies and procedures and inform all staff and students about this change. The Sussex branch of the University and College Union said, Neither UCU Sussex branch nor UCU nationally have endorsed calls for Professor Stock to be dismissed or accused of transphobia. The publicly available UCU Sussex statement, in support of trans and non-binary staff and students, rejects any calls for individuals to be summarily dismissed

and unequivocally supports academic freedom. And a Stonewall spokesperson said, Stonewall is proud to fight for a world where lesbian, gay, bi, trans and queer people are free to be themselves wherever they are. Our industry-leading Diversity Champions programme continues to grow and we work with more than 900 organisations to help create working environments in which LGBTQ plus people can thrive. Stonewall is not currently campaigning for any changes to the Equality Act 2010 or to the accompanying statutory codes of practice. Still to come on the programme, Lily Cole, a model who has worked with the likes of Vogue and Chanel on why tackling

climate change is her new passion. And remember, you can enjoy Woman's Hour any hour of the day. If you can't join us live at 10am during the week, just subscribe to The Daily Podcast. It's absolutely free on BBC Sounds. Now, the first woman ever has been chosen to write a James Bond novel. Award-winning author Kim Sherwood is to write three new books set in the iconic world of James Bond,

published by HarperCollins and Ian Fleming Publications. The series will explore a world without Bond and a new generation of secret agents tasked with fighting a global threat. Kim has described Bond as one of the enduring loves of her life. I caught up with her yesterday on the programme. I mean, I used to joke to anybody who would listen to me, one day I'm going to write James Bond, but I didn't expect that that would come true. So this is amazing.

But anyway, enough of talking about Bond, because we are moving on now, aren't we? Because this is the whole point. You have been brought in to write a trilogy about double o agents but bond is not in the picture anymore so james bond is missing he might be uh captured he might be killed we don't know um and the uh the trilogy will follow a new cast of double o agents i mean this is a very clever thing thing for them to have thought to do, because who doesn't love a spy story? But it's the time is right for to modernize this franchise, correct? I think so. I think James Bond has remained an evergreen symbol for Britain because he can change with us. And what I have the opportunity to do now is to expand that universe for the first time and to create an ensemble cast of heroes who we can all identify with. But in terms of who has been chosen to write for the Bond novels in the past, we've got Kingsley

Amis, Sebastian Fox, Anthony Horowitz. And here you are, I mean, a relative unknown, you know, they've brought you in and the first woman. Do you feel the pressure? Well, it's an honour, isn't it, to be in that list of luminaries. I should say as well that the, of course, the writers for Bond, film and novels, there's been this incredible continuation line and I'm actually joining an amazing line of women

so Samantha Weinberg wrote the Moneypenny Diaries Dr. No, the first Bond film and from Russia with Love co-written by a woman, Johanna Harwood and of course Stevie Waterbridge joined on No Time to Die so I feel like I'm joining

this incredible network of women as well as men and to write in a line that includes Sebastian Forks, that includes Anthony Horowitz, who's Alex Reuter's series, I loved growing up. That's just an incredible thrill for me. I think your dog is very happy about it as well. We can hear someone getting very excited in the background. And I've got to ask, Bond girls, what will become of the Bond girl? What I can say is that for me,

it's always been really interesting, the difference between the women of Bond in the novels and some of the films, particularly the older films. I think sometimes the complexity and the rounded characters of the women in the books has been overlooked. Of course, the books are products of their time, but they're products of the women in in the books has been overlooked you know of

course the books are products of their time um but they're products of their time in all ways um so they also represented the changes in feminism at that time um and i'm trying to pick up on that i want to bring a feminist perspective to the canon as a young woman writer um i want to honor what's come before uh but also create something new and create a space for all of us to be heroes in this universe. And as you said, you know, Bond is such an iconic British character, but Britain has changed so much. And I love that you said that you're going to be bringing a feminist perspective. But, you know, we're living post Me Too, Black Lives Matter. The world is very different to when Fleming was writing. Absolutely. And I think that, you know, the films and the Fleming estate who run the novels have responded to that.

It's a malleable symbol. I think that's why it's lasted. As you say, we're in a very different world now to Fleming's novels. And in some ways, the world Fleming was writing about didn't exist. You know, he was writing about this luxurious, materialistic world where Britain had major significance on the international stage. And he was writing that post-war. He was writing that during changes in Britain's imperialism. So I think Bond has always been a fantasy, but it's a fantasy that can reflect us and shape us. And I'm so excited to get to be part of that for a contemporary world.

And I'm so excited to read the books. The new James Bond author there, Kim Sherwood. Now, Lily Cole is most famous for being a supermodel, making her first appearance on the cover of Vogue aged just 16. But catwalks and fashion shoots don't dominate her life anymore. She's also an actor, filmmaker, entrepreneur, podcast host and environmental activist. And last year, she published a book about climate crisis and solutions to global challenges, making me question what I've been doing with my own life. She now lives in Portugal with her family and young daughter, but she's currently in Glasgow for the COP26.

Earlier this week, Emma started by asking Lily about her hopes for the Climate Change Conference. Optimism I write about because I see it as a choice. It doesn't mean that I believe that things are going to work out fine, but I believe we have the power and the agency to sort of create the future that we want. So for me, it's a very kind of proactive reaction to what's going on

because the data in the situation is terrifying. And so in terms of this conference, I'm not wildly optimistic in the situation we're in, but I do think there are so many solutions, policies, technologies, value systems, wisdoms that we can tap into to find a way through. And that only by focusing on solutions, will we actually overcome the obstacles we need to. I know you interviewed a number of scientists, entrepreneurs, a whole range of people. Was there one particular, I know there's not one solution here, but was there a particular one that

you have kept in your mind going to Glasgow this week around what you actually want to hear politicians commit to because I have to say looking at the sentiment here you know a lot of people they want to be hopeful perhaps they don't feel it necessarily in our political leaders for a range of reasons but they're also saying if we don't do it now at this sort of opportunity at this moment to your point about meeting you know when but was there something that you think more people should be talking about and tuning into i mean a lot of my book is focused on what we as individuals can do in a kind of very citizens grassroots aspect i think what i'm looking to more this week with cop is the political dimension um and i think that is essential because it's way too hard right now for ordinary citizens to make enough change to solve this crisis.

And I think that's part of the reason that people feel so frustrated and angry because it feels a bit hopeless. You know, it feels like it's expensive and it's difficult to make sustainable choices. And the information is confusing and we don't feel like we're getting the political support we need. Well, actually, you addressed that in one of the episodes of your podcast is it is it all about um wealthier people being able to do this is it a wealthy person's game is it a wealthy person's game? I think not completely because one of the most sustainable things you can do is just buy less and consume less and simplify and that's obviously not and you know being vegan is not more expensive so there are there are exceptions to that but certainly more sustainable products often cost more and that is a that is a flaw in our economy that shouldn't be the way that things work um it should the owners shouldn't be on

consumers to have enough money and have enough time to make those extra efforts to buy things that are not destroying the planet that are not cutting down the rainforest that are not exploiting people and supply chains. And that's where I think the political equation is so essential to make it easier for people to live sustainably, to just live their lives basically without accidentally kind of killing their children's future. You didn't have to go into this area.

You didn't have to put your head above the parapet. And I know you actually had reservations about doing so before putting the book out. Why did you go actually had reservations about doing so before putting the book out. Why did you go forward with it? And what were your reservations? Well, my reservations was that it's, I know I'm a hypocrite. Everyone's a hypocrite, you know, and I write a line in the book, how much hypocrisy is too much hypocrisy, because it's almost impossible to kind of exist in our system without, unless you go completely off grid, without feeling complicit in the problem. And, and so i was like do i really want to put myself out there and

and you know um try and speak about issues that are so complex and that i feel kind of complicit in at the same time i did it because i think it's essential i think it's the kind of the biggest kind of crisis our humanity's ever faced and it's an existential threat to our future i'm going to talk with a lot of climate scientists i've talked with a lot of youth activists the seriousness of the situation cannot be underestimated and so i decided to sort of not you know not listen to fear and just do what i felt i could do and also i think i have quite a unique position in terms of access you know the privilege of meeting different people the privilege of having access to people i can interview for the book and the podcast.

And it felt, you know, useful to try and share that. I just wanted to ask about action, anger and being a campaigner to bring our conversation to a close. I know in the past you signed a letter in support of Extinction Rebellion. Of course, what's been called an offshoot of that, you tell me better if it is or isn't, but Insulate Britain activists have been in the news, not least on Friday after protesters walked into oncoming traffic on the M25.

I just wanted to know what you make of the way that's developing. Do you think it's doing the cause that you care so much about, good or harm? It's a very good question. I mean, I'm not familiar at all with Insake britain i don't know anybody in that group um i agree with uh what gretta said when you quoted her about the need for some friction um that you know we look at history we look at historical change no big change has happened without there being friction and people willing to kind of challenge the seders quo quote. At the same time, it's important it's not violent.

And my concern, I guess, with some of the ways that this is playing out is that it's feeding more division. And I feel like the last thing we need is division. And we also, I think, need everyone to feel like an environmentalist, not see environmentalists as a kind of extreme subset. The activist and author Lily Cole. Now, for many black women and girls, combing Afro hair can be a painful and time-consuming task.

But a research engineer has now designed a comb that makes the job easier. Dr Yumna Mohammed first came up with the idea while working as a nanny to support herself while studying for her PhD. Here she is explaining her inspiration. Oh, it's funny how things come in life. So I was a living nanny looking after this beautiful girl called Hazel. She had this huge voluptuous hair. Think a bit of somebody like Diana Ross. So every single Sunday when her mom washed her hair and conditioning, the process of conditioning take her ages because of the texture of the hair, Afro hair is difficult to detangle.

So you have to part the hair into section, apply the conditioner and then detangle. And that really was a very long but also painful process. So Hazel would cry and it really got to me and I wanted to change that experience and for many different reasons to to to start with is that my personal experience coming from a very from an African background every Sunday my mom will sit me and my four sisters and actually do my hair so for me hair care is actually that moment of connecting with different women, you know, of my family giggling. And so I wanted to remove that experience so she can only remember as hair care as the time that she actually connected with her mom.

And also that pain actually affect our relationship with our hair. Because when something is so frustrating to deal with, you end up despising it. And on the top of it, as a young girl growing up in a society where she's not necessarily represented, that really affected her self-image regarding her hair being curly compared to, you know, what she always used to cry wanting to have her hair straight and in a ponytail. So all of the different things really motivated me to invent the comb

and change her hair care experience and her relationship with her hair, of course. Yes, because if you think of something negatively, you don't want to then do it and it all gets worse almost in a bit of a cycle. But you actually created this comb. Can you tell us about what it is or how it works and describe it? Because we're on radio. I always like to say you're going to help me with the pictures here so think about it as um it's like a comb that has a mechanism that enables you you open it and then you put your conditioner in it and then as you detangle uh because the conditioner is there so the slip of the conditioner gets in contact locally with where the hair is and where the

tangles are. And it just makes that process of detangling much more easily. So it's something that you can use it for conditioning, applying a deep conditioner, but also applying things like a leave-in conditioner or even your mousse to be able to curl your hair. So it has a variety of different applications. So think about this simply as a comb that applies at the same time that it detangles. And you had that amazing thing that creators and creatives and innovators have.

When you were creating the prototype, people came to try it. Women came to try it and they wanted to buy it, I understand, even though it looked pretty ugly at that point. Exactly. So I took very much. I'm very happy that I had that scientific insight as an engineer. So I first wonder, like, OK, is it me being lazy or this will actually add value? So I just work with different institutions and actually create a 3D printed. Like, just think about the most scientific-looking type of tool, like completely grey.

And I invited 20 women across Swansea to come and try it for 30 minutes. And it was quite a wake-up call because the feedback, there was lots of joy, but at the same time fear, because some of the women were like, oh, my God, this is going to change my daughter's hair care experience. A daughter actually tried it on her mom, using it on her mom. And just like by the time that a little girl of eight years old can do her mom's hair like wow and then some women were asking me

like can i buy it and i was just like i'm sorry i only have one but i think the whole thing is like you know when you realize that you actually stumble on a great idea because when i asked them at the end i did a survey about asking them would you be interested into buying this the whole 20 women say yes so when there is a possibility of success there is always that fear of failure and I'm just like you now you cannot mess this one up because it's actually a great idea so it's kind of interesting how the whole thing come up. So from there on, I had the motivation to keep on pushing with the idea. And you have in receipt of, is it more than £60,000 from the Royal Academy of the Engineering Fellowship?

Exactly. Exactly. It was the most amazing experience literally so the royal academy of engineering offer every single year um to 15 academics uh 60k to be able to bring their product to market it cover your salary so it's not like you're working two times you can completely focus on the business and then 15k that goes toward the business regarding paying different things. So the first time I applied, I failed. And I just thought it's never gonna work. This project is so niche, you know?

So, but then a friend of mine tell me to apply again and then I got lucky and I was accepted. And so literally from last year, August, to the end of this month, I was an enterprise fellow. So for the whole year, it's been fantastic because I got training from the academy about basic business knowledge, like branding, marketing, financial, raising funds, and also mentoring scheme from not only the academy, you have within the academy, you have a mentor, but also within the program all works in collaboration with universities.

So I was in South West University and so I had a mentor within South University. So it allowed me to have that support, like 360 from my local entrepreneurship ecosystem to actually being linked to the academy. And when is this available? I mean, there'll be some people thinking, you know, definitely want to hear the story of it,

but I just want to maybe get on board. I mean, is it going to come out next year so that's the whole aim next year that is the aim because well I was going to say just just to say around the training and and also I know that you're very passionate about getting um more diversity into your field of work and and people thinking that perhaps they can go into that field that didn't go before and also especially women it's a different you know having different lenses on the world leads to different solutions doesn't it and coming up with different tools and different ideas exactly exactly I think diversity has a huge part to play within innovation in the sense that this

is a problem that women like for centuries and centuries have been actually facing and yet there is no solution. But also when you just look at the hair care industry, like for many years, big brands actually didn't use to cut for women with afro-textured hair. And so I think that lack of diversity within sciences, within engineering, we know some of the research regarding some of the innovation, actually not necessarily catering very well for women, but people from diversity. So it's really very important to actually diversify the field of STEM and engineering to be able to have all of those

different insight of idea and creativity that really can bring the wealth in our community, but also the value into what we're creating as innovators. That was Dr Yamna Mohamed. Genius idea. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. 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's 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.