Woman's Hour - Amy Winehouse remembered; Canadian residential schools; Women at the Tokyo Olympics; Typewriters; Casual workwear

Episode Date: July 24, 2021

It is 10 years since the tragic death of the singer Amy Winehouse from alcohol poisoning at the age of just 27. A new documentary film, Reclaiming Amy on the BBC on features Amy's closest friends and family and seeks to tell the story of the real Amy. We hear from her mother, Janis and close friend Catriona Gourlay.For the first time in 125 years, Team GB are taking more women athletes to the Tokyo Olympics than men. So could this be the best ever Games for women? Dame Katherine Grainger, Britain's joint most decorated female Olympian and Chair of UK Sport; double Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams and Anna Kessel, Women's Sport Editor at The Telegraph discuss. More than 1000 bodies of indigenous children have been found in unmarked graves outside of former residential schools in several parts of Canada over the last few months. Assistant Professor in the History & Classics Department from the University of Alberta tells us about the history of these schools - and the impact they had on the indigenous communities in Canada. And President of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, Lorraine Whitman talks about the aftermath of these discoveries - and the fight for justice for the many missing and murdered indigenous women across the country.We also hear from artistic swimmers Kate Shortman and Izzy Thorpe who are representing Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics. The pair have spoken out about receiving trolling and bullying for their professional synchronised swimmer physiques, describing themselves as having "big shoulders, small boobs and small bums".The fashion historian Lucy Adlington & Style Coach Loulou Storey discuss workwear trends.In the digital age, the humble typewriter seems rather quaint. But according to a new exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland, the typewriter is a technology with a key role in the story of female emancipation. We hear from the exhibition's principal curator, Alison Taubman.Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Dianne McGregor

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 and welcome to Weekend Woman's Hour, choice cuts from the week just gone. We celebrate what some people are calling the Women's Olympics. In the digital age, the humble typewriter seems rather quaint, while a new exhibition celebrates the typewriter and the role it played in women's freedoms. More than a thousand bodies of indigenous children have been found in unmarked graves outside former residential schools in several parts of Canada over the last few months. We'll be hearing about the fight for justice. And it's 10 years since the death of the singer Amy Winehouse. I remember being in a cab with her once and someone opened the door,

threw some knickers on the floor and a load of pills, slammed the door and started taking pictures. So it looked like it was the contents of a handbag that had spilled out. You know, when you're trying to deal with all the stuff that Amy was going through and that's kind of added on top, it's not particularly helpful. Her close friend Catriona on Life with Amy, and do keep listening because we have a really special performance from back in 2003 when Amy Winehouse came into the Woman's Hour studio. First, the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 has begun a year later than planned thanks to COVID. Team GB are taking more women athletes than men for the very first time in 125 years. Of the 376 athletes selected, 201 are female. Women tipped to medal include US gymnast Simone Biles, Indian boxer Mary

Combe and of course our very own superstar sprinter Dina Asher-Smith. So could this be the best ever Games for women? Well I spoke to Dame Catherine Granger, Britain's joint most decorated female Olympian and now chair of UK Sport, which is the body that invests in Olympic and Paralympic sport, double Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams, West Yorkshire's finest, had to get that in there, and Anna Kessel, women's sports editor at The Telegraph,

who is unofficially calling it the Women's Games. Yes, we've waited long enough, 125 years. We weren't allowed to partake in the first one. Very hard for inclusion over the next century and a quarter to be able to even be on the start line. And finally, not only are we more numerous in terms of numbers of women for the GB team, and a near equal split globally in terms of women and men competitors but women are the stars of this Games. Simone Biles is very much the face of the Games globally, you've got Naomi Osaka, total rock star, the US women's football team,

Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and then Dina Asher-Smith and all the wonderful stars of the women's team. So really, they are front and centre of this Games in a way that we've never, ever seen before. Yeah, it's very exciting. Catherine, I've got to ask, you've been chair of UK Sports since 2017. Can you claim credit for all of this? Absolutely not.

I have no chance of my claiming credit for that one. But I think, I mean mean i think i absolutely share anna's excitement about what we're about to see over the next couple of weeks and the huge you know we should really celebrate the changes that's happened over the last century and where women are now in the games um but for team gb a massive change happened when we had national lottery funding came in and suddenly the investment decisions going into sport were were basically gender blind it was all about you know can we give sports to cycling or swimming or sailing or gymnastics or diving or rather than men's or women's events and it meant that all the all the sports have sort of equalized and stabilized and the drive from the international olympic committee to also have sort of gender equality and equity

across all the sports has made a huge shift in numbers and how much we see and to Anna's point I think we're going to see some incredible performances but also some really brilliant outspoken women who talk about really important issues as well as on their own platform from being fantastic athletes so

I think we're in for an absolute treat. And all the young women watching who are going to be inspired a generation inspired Well this is it I think we're in for an absolute treat. And all the young women watching who are going to be inspired, a generation inspired. Well, this is it. I think all, I mean, even athletes we speak to now have been inspired by their heroes and role models of recent years.

And it's really exciting. And I think athletes often don't recognise and realise at the moment of their competition, the effect and impact they have. And it's in this sort of days, months, weeks, years later, you realise the impact that a performance can have on so many people's lives. And really, really positive, uplifting stuff

that makes anything feel possible. And, you know, right now, more than any other year, we probably need that in the world right now. Absolutely. Talking of inspiring heroes, let's bring in Nicola. In 2012, you won Great Britain's first ever female boxing gold. We're all cheering. Give us a sense of what Team G will be feeling.

Yeah, they'll be nervous. They'll be excited. There'll be a lot of feelings running through the athletes' veins. They'll be wanting to win. There'll be a lot of, I guess there'll be a lot of pressure lifted as well. Anna, let's talk about who some of these amazing athletes are that we should be looking out for in Tokyo. We've got cyclist Laura Kenny, taekwondo fighter Jade Jones,

rower Helen Glover, equestrian star Charlotte Dujardin, all aiming to become the first British female Olympians to win gold medals at least three separate Summer Olympic Games. Who do you tip? Oh, God. Well, Jade Jones has got the first opportunity in terms of chronology. And I wouldn't bet her against her with her famous head kicker shot. But don't forget Sky Brown as well.

Britain's youngest ever Summer Olympian. Only 13 years old going into skateboarding. And an amazing competitor. She's incredible. 13 years old. And I've seen her on a skateboard. Unbelievable. Just imagine the confidence that young girl must have or even the nerves. I don't know. Absolutely the nerves. I mean, if you think back this time last year, she actually was involved in a crash where

she almost died. And she came back this year and nailed her first competition. I mean, she is absolutely fearless and she wants to compete in the surfing as well as skateboarding at the next Olympic Games. She's a real superstar in the making. Yeah, I mean, yeah. And again, going to inspire lots of young women. So Nicola, who are the women boxers we should be looking out for this time?

Lauren Price. She's been winning everything recently for the last two years. Ranked number one. I can't see her not getting a medal at the Games this time. And also Caroline Dubois, exceptional junior. She went to the Junior Olympics, got a gold there. Now she's going on to the Senior Olympics.

And I expect her to get a gold as well. She's only, I think, 20, 21 years old, but she's boxing way beyond her years. Her skill level and her intelligence in the ring is exceptional. Do you think it's going to be quite a strange experience this year, isn't it, Nicola, that the athletes have to quarantine in hotels, no spectators? Do you think it'll affect their performance?

I think for the boxers i don't think it will be any difference we're we're used to fighting in a lot smaller crowds a lot smaller smaller venues and so they're not being a crowd there i don't think we'll do anything to the boxers mentality of how it will affect their performances if I was there you've waited five years to get into the Olympics there being a crowd there or not would not affect whether I'm going to win I'm still going to be going out there to win medals and I'm sure not just the boxers but every athlete will have the same mentality as well. Anna some sports have started already of course the British women's football team beat Chile 2-0 on Wednesday with Manchester City striker Ellen White scoring both goals.

So how's Team GB looking so far? Well, really positive. A lot of people say, oh, why would football be at the Olympics? They've already got World Cups. But Olympic football for women has a completely different history. For women, it's really important. It's right up there with the World Cups. So for the women's team to be there is very significant.

And don't forget that they only got to go for the first time in 2012 and they didn't get to go to Rio. So this is only the second time that we're seeing a GB women's team and hopefully they'll do well. And Anna, there have been some controversies to do with female athletes around the game. Helen Glover will become the first British rower to compete the Games after having children.

What are some of the issues around this that have been thrown up? Yes, I mean, it's wonderful that we've got to this point where women are equal to men in terms of numbers or thereabouts, but the Olympics is still very blind around gender equality in its more nuanced form. You know, the IOC got in a terrible flap about whether mothers could bring their babies to Tokyo. Initially, they said no. And we saw the story of Naomi Folkard, the British archer who who was breastfeeding her young baby,

was told that essentially there would be no way she could bring the baby to Tokyo. And she started having to stockpile 80 bags of breast milk. Anyone who's ever expressed knows just how hard that is. 80 bags? 80. She sent us a picture of her freezer. I mean, to have to do that on top of preparing for one of the most, well, arguably the most challenging

ever Olympic Games just adds an extra burden on mothers, which is so unfair. And as Catherine said, you know, what's so special about some of these women competing at Tokyo is not only are're phenomenal athletes, but they're using their platform to talk about the issues that women are facing. And Alison Felix, who's spoken repeatedly about motherhood issues, has actually set aside a childcare fund for women who were not allowed to bring their children to Tokyo and to help pay for the childcare back home,

which is just unheard of and brilliant. Yeah, right. A lot of the women are speaking out about various issues. Let's celebrate Alice Dearing, first black woman to be part of the Team GB swimming team. But an outcry when the Olympic swimming organisation said that a swimming cap designed for black hair couldn't be used at the Games. Yeah, because in their words, it was not a natural shape of the head. And how offensive and how blind is that to the world that we live in? And ridiculous considering the success of black swimmers, particularly at Rio, you know, where we had these incredible breakthroughs. They have now been embarrassed

into a bit of a U-turn several weeks on from this story breaking. But it was so frustrating that it happened in the first place. And it follows this enormous and deeply troubling trend of policing what women can and can't wear, whether it's that they can't wear hijab or modest clothing to compete, or whether that they, you know, they have to wear less clothing, in the example of the Norwegian handball team that were told they couldn't wear shorts, and had to wear these tiny bikini briefs to compete and would otherwise be fined or face potential disqualification just over a pair of shorts well people can't i mean i'm still

trying to get my head around that story they were fined for not wearing bikini briefs welcome to sport right this sport is a world where in gymnastics for example they measure the centimeters between your buttocks and your leotard. It's just unbelievable. And we have to move past this. We have to make sport a place that is welcome for all women. And we have to stop obsessing over what they wear. So long as it's safe and they can perform in it, nobody else should be judging on it. Yeah, obsessing over what they wear and the shapes of their bodies. I'm going to bring in another couple of guests here because they illustrate what we're talking about perfectly. Artistic swimmers Kate Shortman and Izzy Thorpe are representing GB at the Tokyo Olympics. They've been very vocal about body shaming comments they've received online.

Now, they've trained for 10 years and spent 40 hours a week in the pool together, mostly underwater, all working to this moment. And they join us now from Tokyo. Kate, Izzy, you're just out of the pool. How's it all going? Yeah, we're just fresh out of the pool, but yeah, no, it's amazing. We're loving every second of it. Obviously, as you said, it's what we've been working for for like over a decade together. So yeah, yeah, really exciting. And the atmosphere here is amazing. We're just in a holding camp at the moment. There's so many different sports here that we've never really had a chance to meet before. Yeah, it's really nice to see some like new faces or just like people that we've never really seen or seen on social media or like, you know, people we've looked up to for a really long time as well.

And just being able to see them is amazing. Amazing, amazing. Now, both of you brilliantly have spoken out recently about body shaming that you've received from trolls and bullies. What have people said to you? I think that in the past, obviously, we've kind of got comments about shoulders being quite large, especially with swimming, obviously, naturally, because in the sport, it makes your shoulders bigger. And then also with the athletic physique,

obviously getting muscles and flat chested or flat bum and I think a lot of social trends at the moment is to be more curvy so I think a lot of people have kind of said to us you know like oh your shoulders are too big or you haven't got a bum or just you know really silly comments that have just made us obviously feel a bit insecure about our bodies but I think over the years we've overcome that because we've had each other and a really good environment in our sport to be able to like give us confidence in our bodies and I think that we're just trying to get that message out across to everyone else to try and encourage everyone to have positivity around surrounding body image and not this negative thing surrounding it. Did it really did it impact you

both did it really affect your confidence? I think yeah definitely in the past it probably did change our confidence a little bit just because you know when you're training for something so hard as well like we train 40 hours a week and we don't do it for how we look but it's you know it's a side it's the side effect of how much you train so when you're putting in all that dedication and time for people to just say, oh, you look a certain way, it's actually really heartbreaking. But yeah, I think now we're happy and we're confident. And also I think leading back from what we said earlier, there's so many people here in the holding camp that have those muscular physiques, you know, like the athletics and different, you know,

different sports that all are a bit more muscular than girls. So, yes, it's nice to see and be in that environment. Well, I've seen photographs of the two of you and you are outstanding. Absolutely outstanding. You're so athletic, strong, powerful. You are real life superheroes, the two of you. And you are going to inspire a generation. That's what we're talking about.

The empowerment message young women will get from the two of you. And you've campaigned about this, haven't you? Because you took part in a photo shoot. Yeah, we took part in a photo shoot with Blue Bella. So the campaign was Strong is Beautiful. So like we said, it's trying to promote being being strong being athletic having a athletic physique is is beautiful and it shouldn't be you know spoken about in such a negative way and we're trying to yeah just promote it through that I think was a really good way for us to get that message out there they said that um like 64 percent of girls drop

out of sport at the age of 14 15 so obviously So obviously around puberty, you're getting a bit more self-conscious. And yeah, something like 80% of those said it was to do with self-esteem. And yeah, I just think for us, we had to kind of almost do something and speak out in a way that sport is such a good thing for you, you know, physically and mentally. For us, it's completely shaped our lives. like we are the people we are today because of sport um and yeah I just think it's such a shame that girls should be just made to feel like that and have to you know give up just because of an insecurity especially when you're training something for something so hard you know and really being

attentive to your physicality and yeah I mean you're brilliant role models I'm going to bring Nicola Adams in here. You know, these girls are remarkable. They've trained their whole lives for this, Nicola. And you know what? Their mums trained as well, because both your mums were artistic swimmers who swam together.

What advice would you give them? Just keep it up. Don't let what people are saying get to you. You're inspiring the next generation. I know you'll do well and bring back medals. And just remember that we're all back home, just watching and cheering you on. So just give it everything you've got. That was Nicola Adams there giving a word of advice and inspiration to our two young hopefuls, Kate and Izzy, artistic swimmers. I'll definitely be watching those two. And you were

inspired to send us emails. Sam writes, Thanks so much to these lovely women for sharing their experiences about being an athletic build. I'm 55 and did gymnastics from age five. It gave me a very particular physique as I grew up, which I felt so aware of compared to my peers. Ladies aren't supposed to have broad shoulders and muscular legs. They've served me pretty well, though, it turns out. And Jill writes, Izzy and Kate are brave, beautiful and changing perceptions. Strength, determination and confidence are so often stunted in girls and women of all ages, particularly the younger generation who

are shown warped images of what some magazines present as the ideal and the fact that we're still having to address this in 2021 is heart-wrenching. So let's keep talking, supporting, cheering our women on and showing the next generation the real definition of beauty by placing these wonderful women on a pedestal whether they win medals or not. They are our winners. Best of luck to all our Olympians and that's from Jill. What lovely email. Now which innovations have had the biggest effect on women's lives? You might think of the contraceptive pill, or the many inventions that freed our mothers and grandmothers from spending every minute of their day on household chores. But what about the

typewriter as a key to women's freedom? That's the subject of a new exhibition starting at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh this weekend. From the early prototypes of typewriters in the 1850s to the 1980s, the exhibition's principal curator, Alison Tobman, spoke to Chloe Tilly. There's the huge increase in industrialisation, which brings a big increase in offices, in the bureaucracy, in information technologies. The same with government departments, everything from the civil service to the post office increased hugely.

Running alongside that was a big social question, the woman question, very much a middle-class concern about what to do with educated, unmarried crucially, middle class women. And there were lots of debates about that and it was to do with a shift beginning to happen of middle class women whose whole sphere had been very much the domestic, the private, wanting to move into more of a public sphere, beginning to be involved more in politics and in the world of work. And into this comes the typewriter and these new opportunities, and I think that's crucial of clerical work. So they weren't taking jobs from men, these were new jobs that were coming in to offices.

And the typewriter came into this. So it wasn't an immediate, obvious leap from the typewriter into office work. It was the combination of several different elements. So tell us about some of the early women who were using typewriters. The first typewriters were imported from the States to the UK in 1875, 1876, and they were looking for a market. And it's important to know that these were expensive bits of kit. We're talking more a family car than a laptop. So the average person was not going to be buying one of these. And So they were aimed at wealthy individuals. But then retailers were very quick to catch on at the opportunities for marketing these to business.

And one of the quotes we have early on in the exhibition is for an advertisement for a Scottish retailer in the early 1880s that makes that link between women's employment and the typewriters by saying, you know, what profession can we teach our girls? Thousands of young ladies are practically independent through the use of the typewriter and are earning large salaries from its work. So very early on, you could see that link. But large salaries, I don't think so. One of the big points of contention over this was that women were paid maybe half as much as the male

clerks that had always worked in businesses that you can imagine the Dickensian figure sitting, writing in a ledger. Those sorts of jobs went on. But the more that typewriters came into the office, the more those jobs might be threatened. So women were paid far less than the clerks. Also, they had to leave on marriage. And that was a practice that carried on right through really into the 1960s or 70s. And some of your listeners may remember this. It was a social custom and certainly the case in government departments as well. The civil service continued that until well after the Second World War. And I mean, typewriters helped women into the world of work, but they also, in some ways, helped them get the vote. They did, indeed. And as well as becoming typists, and the term typist was very much a title associated with women and work, or typewriters, they were called in the very early days. But some entrepreneurial women then set up their own typing businesses where you could go

and have your letters typed or that would teach a whole new generation of typists. And a lot of those women were interested in the women's suffrage movement and then later became actively involved in that. So we, as an example in the exhibition, we use the story of Flora Drummond, who was one of the huge organising forces behind the Women's Social and Political Union, and was arrested multiple times. But she trained as a shorthand typist in Glasgow in the 1880s. Her aim was to run a post office, but at five foot one, she didn't meet the height restriction at five foot two. So she became the manager of a typewriting office in Manchester where she met the Pankhursts and from there became involved in the suffrage movement. And there are lots of fascinating glimpses of this in their own newspaper, Votes for Women, where you see an advert, for example, that says the soulless little typewriter has done as much towards gaining women's rights as all the arguments and agitations of centuries. And this was because you could use the typewriter along with other office technologies coming in at the same time, crucially carbon paper,

stencils and duplicating machines. So you had women with a lot of skills who could mass produce leaflets that they could then distribute. Now, as we're talking so many messages of women being sexually harassed during the 60s and 70s, working as secretaries, how much of that is reflected in your exhibition? Because some women did have a really tough time, didn't they? Yes, they did. And again, you see that from the earliest days when you get cartoons representing typists, because there was a big backlash, resistance to these women coming into the public sphere, coming into the world of work. And so you get right from the beginning, these hyper-sexualized images of young women with male bosses. You also get the opposite of that. So women typists made to look very unattractive, very deliberately,

because only an unattractive woman would be in the public sphere of work. Any other woman would be at home where she belongs. That's the message behind that. It was interesting, while developing the exhibition, we have film footage. We were trying to find advertisements from the 60s, 70s, 80s we could incorporate. And it was actually very difficult to find footage in the adverts we felt comfortable using, just because of the way that the women were being portrayed. Well, that item got you thinking about your pasts. Karen got in touch to say,

When I was 19, my dad packed me off to secretarial college as I'd left school, but with no clear idea or ambition as to what to do next. I absolutely hated every day of the six weeks I stuck it out. Our mutual parting of the ways occurred when the tutor announced, girls, because in those days only women trained to be secretaries, it's very important that you get into work before your boss so that you can sharpen his pencils. Even in those days of the late 70s and at a relatively young age, I knew that just wasn't right and there was no way I was going to

be sharpening anybody's pencils. I get in to sharpen everyone's pencils at Women's Hour HQ. Got me thinking. John wrote in to say, the all-female typing pool at British Steel was the most scary place I visited during my career. As a naive graduate engineer, the pool could smell blood when I reluctantly slid into the room for more corrections. It was a great relief when a desktop computer was put on my desk. Thanks for the opportunity to remember. Now, this week, some of us have gradually returned to the office. So did you dust off your suits and power heels or channel the casual trends you've adopted over the last 18 months? Chloe Tilley spoke to the style coach Lulu Story about the new hybrid wardrobe many

people are adopting to reflect their new working patterns and to the fashion historian Lucy Adlington who's the author of A Stitch in Time about the challenges women have traditionally faced with workwear balancing looking professional being comfortable whilst looking feminine. Lulu first. One of my little lovely tips that I use a lot is to find yourself an anchor word that you want to step back into the office with so whether that is to feel assured, but a kind of quiet sense of assuredness, or whether that is to feel powerful, maybe you want to have a more bolder, you know, maybe there is a kind of that peacock that's wanting to come

out a little bit more, you know, it's all been hidden so much. So stop, take a moment and just think what is that kind of emotion that I want to project as I step through those doors? Lucy, I guess also there's an element of it depends where you work. I mean, I look around the BBC and it's absolutely acceptable in media organisations to come in in a grotty T-shirt and jeans for some people. And nobody would batter an eyelid at it. But if you walked into a law firm like that, I'm guessing you'd probably be sacked. So are there different rules for different places? Yes, is the short answer. the long answer would take several weeks and in between in between it's extraordinary how our clothes are policed and how this has been going on through history it's all

about balancing where you work and the kind of work you do so my work as a as a dress historian, I can be wearing one day a 19th century crinoline or I can be wearing 1980s fitness gear. You know, so to me, my work is bound up with clothes, but not what I actually wear every day. And to be honest, I'm freelance. So maybe like the BBC workers, although I choose my clothes and I like particular colours and styles, I'm not bound by those rules but the rules have been there. But I've got to say historically the garment that most women would associate with work historically is an apron and so there was that sense that your work clothes for men and women they were just your everyday clothes and then for women you'd bung an apron over the top and this actually only starts to change with the exception of occupational clothes

when we start working in offices so it's really interesting that you're flagging up it's about office work because women always work whether it's paid or unpaid and that's really we've got to thank the new women of the late Victorian age for that saying we want to wear suits we want to wear more masculine clothes and they start entering more so-called male spaces in secretarial and communication roles and there's a huge debate about what are women going to wear in the office because we don't want to look too masculine a man complained that women wearing suits would be able to breathe too freely and we don't want that I think one of the things that's really interesting is this acceptance of our femininity and femininity not being this weakness that we bring to the office. You know, I am a big

champion of Mary Portis and how she talks so much about the power that women can bring in our empathy and our vulnerability. So one of the things when I'm working with clients is almost finding how we can bring in that touch of femininity whether that is through texture in our clothes whether that is through how we play with color fluidity of fabrics I think is something that we'll really see going forward that kind of more relaxed silhouette but it still feels there's a sharpness to it to the shape but the fabric itself is softer that's a really good way for you to feel more put together without feeling too kind of restrained but it is going to be weird isn't it for many people who

have just been wearing comfy clothes at home to suddenly put on work wear and I guess there's a fine line isn't there between being too casual and not being taken seriously enough but actually saying do I want to wear a suit anymore? Maybe I'm going to wear something different. I mean, this is my comfort zone. I love smart casual. This is the bit that really gets me excited when I help clients. And it is as simple as adding a piece of smart and a piece of casual.

When you're getting dressed, think about that. Have you got items in your wardrobe that feel really, really smart? What would be the opposite of that? How could you casualize it tone it down and really having that kind of play with what's already in there and a great little tip would be to not just think about what you want to clear but actually create yourself a mini capsule at the moment pull out all your favorite pieces and those smart ones too the ones that pre-pandemic I was like living in suit I loved my magenta suit but now I am

pairing that magenta jacket with these you know a beautiful relaxed kind of cream jogger pant it still looks tailored but the waistband's elastic you know I can still have that we all need that I know that bit of comfort so it's really about pairing those two pieces together that that kind of relax that glam, the opposites really work. And Lucy, is it important to have different clothes for being at home and being at work? So we have that line, if you like, where we can differentiate in our own minds. I think historically women have liked some sort of demarcation, whether it's taking your apron off at the end of the day, or you hear lovely anecdotes in the past of women rolling down hot stockings and wiggling out of elastic girdles i definitely think there is a sense of being professional putting a professional hat on and for me i wish it was

more a case of we valued the person at work for how they worked and not how they looked but what we choose to wear as lulu's saying, it's so important for us. And one thing I would say still with office work, we still have this impossible to achieve balance of being so-called feminine, whatever that may mean to a person, and being seen as too soft and too frivolous. And perhaps veering the other way and being seen as too hard to not having flair, not having chance to express yourself the other having clothes that fit for purpose still a fight to have trousers still a fight to have pockets so it's it's partly a sensual thing and an individual thing and some of it is still bang on sexism and policing women's workwear the other angle i'd love to bring in here chloe is that really for me it's that psychological moment that we need we need

the signaling of the change in our environment you know it's not just about what other people are seeing and what we're projecting we need to be able to say to ourselves right it's time for work here I go I'm in that headspace I'm in that zone I think as women we think we have to think our way out of things all the time and get yourself into that zone and actually for me clothes can just mark they kind of set the tone they send you down that trajectory and go and this is where we're going so if you're finding that your confidence is feeling a bit knocked if you're putting on an outfit that makes you feel confident then even if you're not feeling inside you will follow the path you'll kind of go with the flow so I would really encourage people if they're in that hybrid workspace and they're sometimes at home now and sometimes in the office

get yourself dressed for work get yourself in that place I mean I know for me when I was I'm a mum when I was a young mum I had to get myself out of that mum mode and sometimes I was working at home and you know doing all the mum stuff at home and actually for me just changed, even if it's something as simple as sitting at your desk and putting your shoes on, you know, could really, really... Rather than your slippers. Rather than your slippers. You'd be amazed at the kind of impact it can have. I would like to just say, can we also break rules? I sometimes just put an evening gown on to flounce around at work just for the fun of it, to break out of that sense of what your role is. And I'm in a ball gown as I speak to you this very minute. 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. All you have to do is subscribe to the daily podcast for free via the Woman's Hour website. And we'd love to hear from you. You can also email us via the same website. Now, campaigners are calling for the Canadian government to release all records about residential schools where indigenous children were forcibly housed, suffered abuse and many thousands ultimately died. More than a thousand bodies of indigenous children have been found in unmarked graves outside of these former residential schools in several parts of Canada since May. Residential schools which housed indigenous children taken from their homes were funded by the Canadian government in the 19th and 20th century and run

by religious organisations. They were created to force the assimilation of indigenous children. An estimated 6,000 died in these schools, often because of the squalid conditions. Physical and sexual abuse were said to be rife. Chloe spoke to the president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, Lorraine Whitman, about the fight for justice for the many missing and murdered Indigenous women across the country. But first, Crystal Fraser,

Assistant Professor in the History and Classics Department at the University of Alberta. In 1894, it became law that attendance was mandatory. And so if Indigenous parents wanted to keep their children away, they could be subject to fines or imprisonment. But at these Indian residential schools, they were often overcrowded. There was poor nutrition and even state-run experiments on the bodies of Indigenous children,

widespread disease, tuberculosis, smallpox. But also these institutions were not able to run without the labor of students. And so really receiving an education as subpar as it was, that was only one part of their everyday routine. They were farming, they were cooking, they were cleaning, maintaining the school. We know that these deaths were caused by a number of things. I mentioned malnutrition and disease, violent criminal acts, student runaways. And, you know, children were forbidden for speaking their language or talking to their siblings. Depending on how far a school was away from your home community,

you could be gone for upwards of 10 to 12 years at a time. You know, the last two Indian residential schools in Canada closed in 1996. So about 25 years ago, and although conditions had improved into the 1970s, 80s and 90s, that goal of dismantling Indigenous families continued. Will you talk about that trauma? And I wonder, Lorraine, if you can talk to us a little bit about the impact this had on Indigenous communities in Canada, not only the children who were in these schools, but the parents who had them ripped away from them.

It has traumatised the community, the parents, as well as the children that were taken. And it has left mental, psychological problems in this whole being because the parents, even the fathers, if they plan to keep their children back, as Crystal had stated, they would be incarcerated. And I can just speak from my area of, you know, four of my siblings being taken with a 60 scoop at the time. I'm from a family of 14. And if my father were incarcerated, there were another 10 other children that needed to be taken care of. It has taken so much. It has forced, you know, to take the Indian out of the child,

but it never did. It just broke down the child, and today we're finding far more consequences due to it, you know, the housing problem, addictions, suicides in communities, you know, and the whole health being the mental health is so important, because we're trying to bring it back and the government and the churches are responsible. They had taken us out of an area and situation a home where we had values that we were able to live with. And we were able to deal with it, but we were taken and forced into another area where our children were beat. They had been raped. They had been, again,

used as slaves for cooking, for cleaning, for farming, and their language was taken away. There was no communication that they could do. So it certainly has left trauma and it's left despair with our Indigenous communities from coast to coast to coast across Turtle Island. Crystal, did the wider society in Canada know what was going on in these schools? Because as you pointed out, this didn't end until 1996. That's correct. That's a great question. And I mean, I just want to emphasise that Indigenous parents and communities have known that this has been going on for a very long time. The Indian Act, it was literally illegal for Indigenous people to hire lawyers. And so there was really no way to work around the system.

So parents knew that this was going on. I've looked at records from the late 1800s about numerous complaints and letters that were sent by parents and families to missionaries and Indian agents and bureaucrats. in 1907, it was the work of Dr. Peter Bryce. He was the public health officer for the Department of Indian Affairs. And he was really the first one to sound the alarm on these schools that conditions were so awful that at some institutions, the death rate was as high as 40%. We know through archival work that at some schools, it was actually closer to 70%. So Dr. Peter Bryce reported on this to the Department of Indian Affairs. He was ignored and then later shuffled out into retirement. He published his report on national crime in 1922 on his own time and dollar. But really, throughout the 1920s, 30s, 40s, Canadians knew that this was happening. It was consistently in the press, particularly because conditions were

so awful. Then during the Second World War in 1946, a special joint committee decided that Indian residential schools in Canada would start to wind down the system. And this was in particular because Canadians, but like a lot of other people in the world, were learning about the Holocaust and they were wondering how it is that Indigenous peoples are treated in Canada. So looking inward, although that decision was made in 1946, the last schools closed in 1996, so 50 years later. And really, these institutions kept on making national headlines. And although the decision was made to close the schools and integrate Indigenous children into provincial day schools, they were still opening brand new Indian residential schools throughout the 50s,

60s and 70s. Lorraine, we know that there has been an increase in excavations taking place, horrendous, that more than a thousand bodies of Indigenous children have been found. We know that campaigners are now calling on the Canadian government to release all information that they have about what went on in these schools and what children are missing. You want criminal prosecutions, don't you, your organisation? Yes, we do. We do demand, you know, for those records to be released. There has been a genocide that has taken place. It was also stated in the Truth and Reconciliation Report by Honorable Murray Sinclair, and he stated that these bodies of the remains of our children had been buried. And he asked the government at that time, and that was 2016, for dollars from the government,

but he had been denied. And that was 1.8 million. The Liberal government that's in now, you know, we still haven't seen any of that money being spent. So we demand, it is a genocide, and there is no genocide that should go without any justice. Justice needs to be served, whether it be, you know, the nuns, the priests, or the people who have, you know,

assisted in those time periods. You know, these are remains of our children. We have possibly up to over 6,000 of these small little children, innocent souls that have been taken away. And there needs to be justice. And it is the government and the church that are liable for this. The government gave the church its dollars to be able to take care of our children. So there is justice that needs to be given. Well, we received a statement from the Office of the Minister of Crown Indigenous Relations.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Call to Action provide a roadmap for the journey of reconciliation and our government is working with all partners to ensure all of the calls to action are implemented. Call to Action 58 calls on the Pope to issue an apology to residential school survivors, their families and communities. We continue to believe a direct apology from the Pope is an important step in acknowledging the past and moving toward reconciliation. In addition, the Catholic Church must provide all documents relating to missing children and burials at residential schools in Canada. The Prime Minister has directly and repeatedly called on the Pope to apologise

and for the Church to provide all relevant documents, and our government will continue to do so. Now, it's ten years this week since the death of the incredibly talented Amy Winehouse from alcohol poisoning at the age of just 27. The singer-songwriter was a one-off. She achieved international stardom, winning five Grammy Awards for her album Back to Black. She also made headlines for the wrong reasons. Her descent into drug and alcohol addiction and her troubled relationship and marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil was much documented. Those around her, her family, were accused of not doing enough to support her,

in particular her father Mitch, often at her side, said the film Amy in 2015 portrayed him in the worst possible light. While a new documentary, Reclaiming Amy, on the BBC iPlayer, features Amy's closest friends and family and seeks to tell the story of the real Amy. Chloe Tilly spoke to her mother Janice and close friend Catriona Gourlay, first Janice, on the young Amy. Amy, I would say the strong-willed. Because, yes, if I said to Amy, don't, she did.

Amy did what she wanted to. And that's hard as a parent, isn't it? Yes, yes. Well, it was almost a game. And so how did you navigate that through childhood? I just went along with it. And I did. I didn't try and go against her. I was with her. Always. Just to be stronger than me go against her, I was with her. Always.

When did you realise she had this incredible talent? Probably when she was eight or nine. She would sing at home constantly, where her brother and I would say, Amy, shut up. I cut out a lot of that watered, kind of in-between music that was around. You know, I went straight for the good stuff when I was a kid. In my house, you couldn't have something on unless it was good, just a good song that you could show off your voice to.

Young love's joy, feel like a lady. have something on unless it was good just a good song that you could show off your voice to she liked sinatra she liked ella fitzgerald she liked all the the standards and she sang them so well and where did that talent come from i would say it's her own within katiana you were friendly with amy for a long time just explain to us us a little bit about how you met and the friendship. So we met through a school friend, a guy that had just been to school with her, I went to college with, and he was always talking about his friend Amy, and she was a great singer. And you know when you're at that age, when you're kind of a teenager, it will sound probably quite childish now,

I thought, oh yeah yeah this girl sounds great you know she's a singer and we met each other and I was like oh actually yeah she is great and is also incredibly talented. And I mean you were very close you I mean you lived together didn't you? Yes yeah we lived together in Camden and in East London as well but we had flats kind of one above the other in Hackney as well. And so she sang a lot, as we've heard from Janice, but we didn't get to see Amy, obviously, when she wasn't performing. So just Amy the mate, what was that like? This will sound like slightly boring and a bit obvious, but we did normal things that girls do

at that age. We were, you know, hanging out in Camden or going to play pool. I worked in a vintage shop and Amy would come and help me. She loved organising and sorting things. This is by no means suggesting that our house was anything less. I mean, you remember. It was messy, was it? Just a bit, to put it mildly. But Amy used to love to come to my work and help organise the belts.

She could honestly sell anything to anyone as well. It's interesting in the documentary because you talk about your relationship and you talk about how you had an intimate relationship with Amy, which for many people, it will be the first time they've heard about that. Was that a difficult decision to open up and talk about that? Yes, and also really awkward talking about

it with Janice here as well. There's no point in me waiting for 10 years and never speaking about Amy if I'm not providing any new information, any more context around her life that might be meaningful to somebody that is either navigating their way in terms of either their mental health or their sexuality. You know, unfortunately, whilst lots of people know that Amy's incredibly talented, I think her life seems to be punctuated by certain things. Or, you know, people think about either drinking or whatever else, the other stuff, or, you know, the most obvious relationship in her life. And that perhaps they don't know that she was really loved by her friends and she had a lot of other things going on

that perhaps she would have felt more comfortable talking about if we were, you know, if we were Amy in 2021. I think, you know, that would be something she'd probably be a lot more open about. Because it has changed a lot, hasn't it? In a decade decade society's attitudes towards mental health and well-being do you do think she'd be judged in a different way by the media by society? Absolutely I just think that you know the language and the verbiage that

was used about her at the time I just don't think people would get away with it you know especially when it came to her mental health and the sort of stuff that Amy declined house and things like that. You know, I know it played a significant part in, you know, her issues with her mental health and how she saw herself. Because even though she'd say she didn't read things, I knew she did. If you think everybody views you in a certain way or that you're just this you know chaotic mess it's not going to do wonders for for how you view yourself either let's talk janice about the things that

people know about with amy her trouble relationship and marriage to blake fielder civil her drug addiction i think alcohol that's that was hers all i was going to say no of course what i was going to say was that has been widely talked about. And there's been a lot of criticism of your family and the dealing of that, particularly Mitch. And I just wonder if you feel your family was scapegoated by the media. Yes, I think so. Yeah, I completely think they were. I think people did not understand.

No, everybody wants people to to scapegoat and to pass judgment and they weren't there when Janice and Mitchell were there all the time every time something happened they would be there and make sure she was all right or you know the countless times she was taken to rehab facilities or there was an intervention. But people have kind of made their own mind up. So that's the bit that I find quite frustrating. And people have made their mind up as well by reading the coverage in the media at the time. You've touched on how unfair you felt that was. For you, Janice, as a mother, to see the way that your daughter was being portrayed,

particularly in the tabloid press. Well, the good thing with me is I, again, step back. It was just a story. the way that your daughter was being portrayed, particularly in the tabloid press? Well, the good thing with me is I, again, stepped back. It was just a story. So you didn't read it or you read it and just forgot it? Yeah, I saw clips and I thought, OK, let that go. I just didn't take it on board, thank heavens. Yeah, it got so out of hand that actually it was best not to engage with it in any way.

It was best for her and for everyone just to try not to engage with it. You just forget that she was chased down the street by the media and often covering her head and trying to just get through crowds. Yeah. What people don't see with some of that footage as well is the things that would be being shouted to her to get a reaction. I remember being in a cab with her once and someone opened the door, threw some knickers on the floor and a load of pills, slammed the door and started taking pictures. So it looked like it was the contents of a handbag that had spilled out. And there'd be banks and banks of people outside the house

all the time. We used to have to put like, I think we had to put shaving foam around the edges of the window so that they couldn't... It was just ridiculous. They'd rent out flats that were in the same complex as us. And, you know, when you're trying to deal with a situation, all the stuff that Amy was going through and that's kind of added on top, it's... Yeah, it's not particularly helpful. As you say, she was basically hounded.

Yeah. You managed to get an injunction out, didn't you? So that they had to be a certain distance away after a while. But that took quite a while to come through, I think. He left no time to regret You have spoken about Back to Black being a millstone around Amy's neck. Just explain a little bit about what you mean with that. Had she had an opportunity to get another album under her belt and start touring that,

it would have been something new to focus her attentions on. I don't know if you agree, Janet. Yes. If you think about it, quite a few of those songs are pretty morose. We only said goodbye when the world's... I died a hundred times. If you then add into the mix that you've got 130,000 people watching you sing songs about the unhappiest point in your life, and sometimes she may or may not have had a drink as well,

that's going to exacerbate the feeling that you feel when you're singing those songs. She said to me once, I think it was something like, every song I've ever written is about a sad time or a raw deal. That was her way of doing it. And everything bad that happened in her life, she would write about it. And do you listen to her music? It's on. And that's the whole thing, it's on. My thing is, every day, there seems to be an Amy moment.

Every day. Whether it's on the radio, TV, there's a quiz, she's a question. It's like there's always Amy moments. The thing that I find hardest actually is to hear her speaking voice. That's when I, that tends to make me well up. It's ten years since her death, which in itself, I just couldn't believe that it has been ten years and I can't imagine what it's been like for you as a close friend and clearly Janice, you as her mother.

Are you finding it difficult as you approach the tenth anniversary of her passing? Thank goodness, no. It's just a celebration of Amy, is what it is. I agree. How do you want your daughter to be remembered? I think as a fun person, which she was, and she had a good sense of humour,

she'd make jokes of everything. So quick-witted as well. Like, unbelievably quick-witted. And so talented and so charming and so funny. Bless her so able. That's how she was. When you say able, what do you mean? Her abilities as a songstress, as a writer. I mean, she just could do it so easily.

I was thinking of you when I came Yeah, yeah What do you expect? You left me here alone I drank so much, needed your touch That was Amy performing I Heard Love Is Blind live in the Woman's Hour studio way back in 2003. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend and join us from 10am on Monday for more Woman's Hour studio way back in 2003. Have a wonderful rest of your weekend and join us from 10am on Monday for more Woman's Hour.

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.