Woman's Hour - Andrea Prudente, Zara Aleena, Women in Science, Loo queues at festivals

Episode Date: June 28, 2022

An American pregnant woman who was on holiday in Malta this month couldn't get an induced medical miscarriage when she needed it because of the country's strict abortion laws. Andrea Prudente ended up going to Mallorca to get treatment, where she’s recovering in a hotel. She joined Emma. Zara Aleena, 35, was assaulted as she walked home in East London in the early hours of Sunday. The Met Police believe she was the victim of an "opportunist stranger attack". She died later in hospital. Emma speaks to Andrea Simon, Director of End Violence Against Women Coaltion and Zoe Billingham, former Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary about women's safety.Women in science are less likely to have their contributions recognised than their male counterparts - for example on a scientific paper or named on a patent - according to new analysis. A team of economists in the US found that women often have to work twice as hard as men to earn credit. But what's it like for women in science here in the UK? Monica Grady, CBE is a Professor at the Open University. She joins Emma as does co-author of the US study, Professor Julia Lane from the Wagner School of Public Policy at NYU.Have you ever noticed the queue for the women’s toilets is much longer than the queue for the men’s? Two Bristol university graduates have tried to resolve this issue, by inventing female urinals. They joined Emma to explain how it works. We have an update on Roe v Wade being overturned with the attorney Rebecca Kiessling and Jessica Arons from the American Civil Liberties Union.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Emma Pearce

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 Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning and welcome to the programme. Today we will bring you the latest on the legal cases happening across America, as I talk to you now, trying to stop outright abortion bans and the closure of abortion clinics in the fallout from the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade. You will also hear the story of an American woman who happened to

be holidaying in Malta when her pregnancy started to go wrong and because of Malta's laws she was denied medical help. And I'll also tell you about the research that female scientists, well some of them certainly, have been waiting for. Plus, two inventors will be joining me today who hope to have solved the women's loo queue problem, if we can call it that. You'll certainly be aware of it. You've been in a queue much longer than perhaps the men that you've gone out with for the evening, if they've even had a queue in the men's loos. They've trialled this, this particular solution, at festivals at Glastonbury,

no less, where I think they still are, where they'll be joining me from. More details to come about their invention, but it does give me the perfect excuse to ask you this morning.

If you could invent something for women, what would it be? It doesn't matter if you can't quite imagine how it would work. Could you please tell me? I am all ears.

Thank you in advance. 84844. That's the number you need to text me here at Woman's Hour. Of course, you could suggest it and an inventor could be listening. We might be able to set you up together. Or it could be something you can't quite imagine actually being reality, but you just wish was a bit different. Do let me know.

If you could invent something for women or to help women in our lives what would it be on social media at bbc women's hour or email me your suggestions your ideas the first thing that came comes to mind maybe it's something you've been thinking about for years you can get through to me on email via the women's hour website please do so waiting to hear from you now and of course if there's anything else that you want to talk about that you're spurred on to share something about or an experience or review or an opinion

throughout the programme, same numbers, 84844. Those are the ones that you need. Please do so. But she was just walking home. The words you have heard me say time and time again on this programme. And I am so, so sorry to have to say them again.

Today, the newspapers and the websites are filled with photos of Zara Alina, a 35-year-old woman who was assaulted as she walked home in Ilford, East London, in the early hours of Sunday morning. The Met Police believe she was the victim of an opportunist stranger attack, as they've described it. She died of severe head injuries later in hospital. A man has been arrested. We have covered the killings of other women on this programme many, many times.

Most recently, Biba Henry, Nicole Smallman, the sisters, Sabina Nessa and Saren Everard. And there are others, and I could keep naming them, and there are projects dedicated to naming those women. Time and time again, we have been told it must never happen again. But in the early hours of this Sunday, it did. We know at least 52 women have been killed by men in the UK this year already. That's according to the National Femicide Census. And political figures, police forces have all been reacting to what's happened to Zahra Alina, which is, of course, a live legal case, I should say, at the moment. But for instance, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said he was heartbroken by the news. And understandably, he said,

women living in the area and across London will be feeling distressed and fearful after this awful attack and the death of another woman at the hands of a man. Well, to discuss this, I'm joined by Andrea Simon, the Director of End Violence Against Women Coalition, and Zoe Billingham, the former Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary. Andrea, if I could start with you. Good morning. Welcome to the programme. Good morning. Thank you. Your reaction to this news of yet another woman being killed on the street who chose to walk? Her friend said that she liked walking. Well, first and foremost, of course, our thoughts are with the loved ones of

Zahra's family. It's terrible to be having to have this conversation again. But we know that the murders and killings of women are they're becoming far too commonplace we've had some national conversations in the last year and they have primarily focused on women's safety in public but we know that the majority of abuse that women experience is actually most commonly perpetrated by someone who is known to them but nonetheless this will have shot sent shockwaves into that community in east london but it will also be impacting all women because we know what it feels like to live with the threat of male violence every day we know what it's like to go out and to safety plan and to think about our roots um and where we're going and and there's

been a lot of data that's come out to say how prevalent those feelings are amongst women. One in two women feeling unsafe walking alone. That's some of the latest figures you've seen and has been commissioned. I mean, again, as you mentioned around the emphasis being on what women do to keep themselves safe. We've also discussed that being a necessary emphasis, but the emphasis uh with with how we respond to to such tragedies and one of the quotes from a police officer speaking to the bbc said a full forensic examination of the scene was happening surrounding area as well taking place there's house to house inquiries and the police are working at pace to figure out what happened but there's also an effort from the police to talk about, you know, that

actually, this is not something that should mean women should change their behaviour. But there's an understanding that women are fearful. Yes, exactly. And I think some of the first advice is always women should be alert. We are alert. We live our lives in that state of alertness. I think in the year that following Sarah Everard's murder and other murders of women, the government refreshed its violence against women and girls strategy. And a lot of the focus was on interventions relating to women's personal safety rather than perpetrator behaviour. And this is what we want to see change. The focus on safety was the government committing funding for things like street lighting schemes, CCTV, as well as increased police presence in our communities. And we've seen that there's nothing that women can do to deter somebody who's intent on going out to commit these types of crimes.

However, what opportunities are there that we're missing more broadly to identify a man who goes on to kill a woman? And let's talk about that. You as the Director of End Violence Against Women, the coalition, what's the view on how, and I know we don't know the details here, but we are being told it's an opportunist stranger attack. Those are the three words used to describe this. What do we know about men who do do this or some of the patterns around this? So it's hard to imagine there wouldn't have been signs that family, friends, colleagues maybe wouldn't have picked up on someone who clearly has deeply misogynistic inclinations, views, concerns around their behaviour. Perpetrators of things like domestic

abuse, sexual violence, they don't often come to the attention of the police. It's a very under-reported crime. We've got very low levels of trust and confidence in policing and women constantly tell us that they feel disbelieved and minimised when they do come forward. But we need to be doing a lot more to identify some of the escalation that we have seen in the several cases where it's been demonstrated that so-called low-level offences, such as things like innocent exposure, have been committed before men have gone on to escalate their offending to rape, to murder. We saw that in the case of Wayne Cousins with Libby Squire's killer also.

And so we haven't got enough research around the escalation of men's behaviour. And we certainly are not taking it seriously enough when these concerns do come to light or when these things are reported. And when we talk about their experiences of sexual harassment, of indecent exposure. So there's an awful lot that needs to be done on the preventative side to really catch these types of perpetrators before their behaviour escalates. Let me bring in Zoe Billingham, former Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary. Zoe, good morning. Welcome back to the programme. Morning, Emma. Hello, Andrea. We are talking there and the point that's being made from Andrea there about prevention. People are listening and thinking, why and how does this keep happening? Especially

in this particular instance, yes, it's a live case, but what we've been told it's a stranger taking an opportunity here. Do you think enough is being done on prevention? Well, first, like Andrea, my heart absolutely goes out to Zara's poor family and the unimaginable grief that they must be experiencing now. Is enough being done around prevention? I think this is a really important point. I think it's something that the police are now beginning to really focus on, is that rather than expect us as women to keep ourselves safe,

we have every right to walk our streets without threat or fear or intimidation. The police really now get that it's their job to keep our streets safe. And the only way to do that is to focus on prevention, to make sure we've got enough police officers in our neighbourhoods, knowing our communities. Those little signs that Andrew was talking about. Someone is not going to wake up in the morning and suddenly commit an atrocity like this. There will be friends and family, there may be teachers and GPs, there may be people in hospitals that would have spotted unusual behaviours. may have just gone on in your mind or green light whatever you know if you're a teacher a gp any of those people you've just listed and you you are seeing someone who's acting not as they should they obviously haven't committed a crime yet so what should you do um get in touch with the police number one but actually the police need to do much more to work together in local communities to make sure it's really easy for schools and hospitals and GPs to access the teams that are actually

dealing with this, that agencies come together to share information about individuals who may be behaving oddly, that may be representing a risk, so that all of the intelligence relating to that individual can be pulled and actually that the police can then take proactive measures to intervene. Look, Emma, one of the things that's happened in the last year since the tragic killing of Sarah Everard is there has been a prioritisation of violence against women and girls. The Home Secretary has now announced that it's going to be treated on a par of counter-terrorism, serious organised crime. Absolutely excellent, but that now needs to be put into practice. And what I would expect to see is teams within neighbourhoods

specifically focused on preventing these crimes happening and keeping women safe as they go about their daily business. As you say, Emma, she was just walking home. Yes. I mean, looking at what again has been said, we do have a statement that was from the Met Police yesterday, which says, following a fast-moving investigation, officers have arrested a 29-year year old man on suspicion of murder. He was arrested at an address in Ilford on the afternoon of Monday, the 27th of June yesterday, and remains in police custody.

And we also invited the government on this morning, but they said that they wouldn't be commenting. The spokesperson said they wouldn't be commenting on an active police inquiry but going to the police officer who's quoted to the BBC is about this particular case they have said women should not have to change their behavior should be able to go about their business feeling safe at any time of day or night and it is our job to ensure that happens officers cannot be in all places at all times we urge the community especially women to report any suspicious or unwanted behaviour or to seek help if you feel threatened. On that point, Andrea Simon, in your job, you talk to a lot of women who are trying to traverse this difficult path, who may have already been victims and now survivors. What would you say about the trust levels of women going to the

police if they are the ones who've spotted some behaviour that's not right? I think it's really problematic at the moment that women's trust and confidence in the police has sharply eroded in the past year. I mean, we've done our own research on that and that's found that women are less likely to come forward to report sexual assault following the murder of Sarah O'Brien by serving police officer and almost half of women have less trust in in police so we've got you know we've got a big issue in terms of tackling that but I would say that is it is up to criminal justice agencies is up to the government to inspire that trust it's not going to happen unless there is significant transformation of the criminal justice system the police and the state have to be responsible for preventing violence against women and girls

but also for prosecuting it and we've seen that it just doesn't do that yes and it's also very striking we're talking at a time if i can just just also aware of barristers criminal barristers being on strike other parts of the system uh being under strain as well which is of course when you've got to the point where something awful has happened, what you have to rely on for justice. Thank you very much, Andrea Simon, Director of End Violence Against Women Coalition.

And Zoe Billingham, just a final word from you as former Her Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary. Do you see any signs of trust between those women who do not feel they have the trust, like Andrea says, in the police improving?

Have you seen any change since we last spoke? You know, when trust is broken, it's very, very hard to win that trust back again. But what I would say that the Met Police and other forces around the country are doing is they are changing attitudes. That statement from the officer in respect of Zara's killing is a million miles away from the advice that was being given to women only nine months ago. That recognition that this is the job of the police to prioritise this and put this right, that's the first step. The trust will follow when the public see the police standing up,

keeping women safe, keeping our streets safe. Zoe Billingham, thank you. Well, while we have been talking, and I'm sure for you also, I should say, and it's important to say, we are thinking about Zara Alina, a 35-year-old woman whose name we now know, whose face we have seen across the media this morning in the last 24 hours, who was assaulted as she walked home in Ilford, East London over the weekend. And she died of severe head injuries later in hospital. We're thinking of her. We're thinking of her friends and family who have paid tribute to her. They've talked of her love of walking, of her being a fast walker, of her with a future she hoped in law,

which is what she'd been training in, and also of her with a future she hoped in law, which is what she'd been training in, and also of her being a kind soul. So thinking of Zara Alina this morning and her friends and family. And of course, you've been listening intently and also getting in touch with us off the back of that discussion. And Penn says, what about normal men? Shouldn't they be helping to keep the streets safe, as Penn describes them, for women, those who aren't being violent? Not sure how, but I'm sure most men would want to. That's a message I see repeated from time to time on this subject, but an important one to raise.

Thank you for writing in. And more messages, I have to say, also coming in around some of the other issues that I raised throughout the programme. Thank you for those. Keep them coming in on 84844. I did ask you for inventions as well. What you would invent for women and why, because we have a couple of inventors coming up on 84844. I did ask you for inventions as well. What you would invent for women and why, because we have a couple of inventors coming up on the programme. Many inventions coming in.

Kate says, I'm dreaming of inventing a car mode. Never mind a car mode. A chemical loo built into a car seat. A simple sliding lid to open. I need to trademark this. I'm just thinking about how it disposes of itself. Have we got more detail on that, Kate? Is that while you're driving?

How does that work? No, I'm sure it's not. Actually, with the whole car element of this, Miranda has come up with something else, which I love as well. A handbag compartment by the gear stick in your car. Because if you have a passenger where you normally have your bag,

you then wouldn't have to put your bag on the floor by their often dirty shoes. I've thought of this for years. I always just get them to carry it. But yes, like that. Although I did just discover a new compartment in the car that I didn't even know was there, but it definitely couldn't fit a handbag.

Linda says, I would like someone to invent a drone that collects dust. You can get a lawnmower that cuts your grass and a hoover. So why not a drone to collect dust, which you can set while you're out? Hazel, this is an easy one. A swim hat that actually keeps your hair dry. Very good. Bernadette says,

a battery operated, personal heat adjusted, individual body suit for the family. Wouldn't need to put the heating on. Oh, I thought because you were always cold. You're a fellow cold person like me. And to those who are, whenever I say that as a colder woman,

yes, I have checked my thyroid and I'm always grateful that you tell me to do so caroline says definitely an in vitro womb or male pregnancy i do not believe there will ever be true equality if women are the only sex bearing children a boob separation device to hold your boobs apart instead of squishing them together in a mono boob if there are no wires in your bra and i have to say straight off the back of that with no name on it annie chimes in please please a comfortable bra can anyone invent such a thing and one here very to the point with no name a pill to eliminate menopause and so it carries on what would you invent for women and why Please do get in touch on 84844 and do keep your messages coming in about anything else that you wish to comment on.

Now, a pregnant American woman who was on holiday in Malta this month was not allowed to get an induced medical miscarriage when she needed it because of the country's strict abortion laws. Malta is the only EU country that has a total ban on abortion in all circumstances. Maltese doctors told Andrea Prudente, who was nearly four months pregnant, that the placenta, her placenta was partly detached and her pregnancy no longer viable, but there was still a beating heart. The complications meant that her life was at risk, but in Malta, terminating a pregnancy is completely illegal, even when the foetus won't survive. Andrea ended up flying to Mallorca to get treatment, where she's still recovering in a hotel and joins me now.

Andrea, good morning. Welcome to the programme. Good morning. Thank you for being with us. And I must start by saying how terribly sorry I am for your loss, for your partner's loss and for everything that you are going through at the moment. Thank you. You are at the moment, as I say, recovering. How are you? I'm doing okay. We got discharged from the hospital Sunday night and have been kind of convalescing in a hotel here. And after an almost two week ordeal and 10 days in a hospital bed, I have, you know, I'm weak and fatigued and have a lot of, you know, emotional distress and kind of processing to do so. But getting good food and some sleep I'm each day

I'm feeling a little bit more myself and able to kind of work through the waves of grief at having lost a child that we wanted and yes we're processing a really very intense experience because you were on holiday uh pregnant and and started to have have complications as i described yeah we were i was about 15 weeks pregnant when i had some profuse bleeding and um then two days later my water broke so there was there's kind of a two-part problem where the pregnancy went catastrophically wrong which was the placenta detaching partly and then the membrane rupturing. So there was no amniotic fluid around the baby. And doctors were immediately direct and unambiguous that there was no way that the

baby would survive. She did still have a heartbeat, but she could not continue to develop. And at 15 weeks, it's not even close to viable yet. So that was the start of the nightmare. And then you were not able to receive the help end of the pregnancy and evacuation of the uterus. hemorrhage. And then the other very serious risk once the membrane ruptured was for potentially fatal infection because now the uterus is open and exposed and it really is kind of only a matter of time. And the doctors in Malta weren't very direct about that. We had to kind of piece that together, doing our own research, contacting doctors at home, exactly what was at stake, because of course we were grieving the loss of our daughter. But then coming to the realization, my life is at stake here and the doctors in Malta weren't going to protect me. Because it's not legal for them to do so with the way that their laws are regarding abortion.

So long as there was a fetal heartbeat, they wouldn't intervene. It didn't matter that the baby could never survive, that it wasn't viable. There was no one to... The only person to protect was me our daughter was already lost so and your partner and you then had to as you say get up to speed and make some quite fast decisions which resulted in traveling which is probably the last thing you felt like doing

oh not not only was traveling hard to think about, but also every doctor we spoke to, including the one overseeing my care in Malta, said absolutely did not get on an airplane. You could hemorrhage and die on the plane. So we weren't able to arrange travel on our own. We looked into trying to hire an air ambulance, and they required a doctor's note saying you were discharged and safe to fly. We couldn't get that. So it was really only by the grace of our American insurance. We had bought a travel insurance policy for the trip and they put a team together and, you know, did all this logistics planning and a crew,, a French doctor and nurse on a private jet, flew down from Belgium. I went ambulance to air ambulance to ambulance to hospital. So I was never

not being supervised because the risk was that high. And at that point, it had been more than seven days since my water broke. The water breaking is when the infection risk really goes through the roof. How were you feeling during this time? It was a dark time. I mean, on the one hand, trying to, you know, the grief of finding out this was a wanton pregnancy. We planned for it. So there was that, but that kind of got, you know, all jumbled up with this sort of what felt like a fight for survival.

We felt trapped. We were panicking, you know, hours and days were ticking by. I was like, you know, I felt captive in this hospital room. I was getting needles all the time and tubes in my arm. It was terrifying. It felt like torture. And I knew that down the hall from my room were the doctors and the tools necessary to do the relatively straightforward intervention that would take me out of danger so it was really psychologically challenging for both Jay and I. Yeah Jay's your partner I should say I mean we

we did contact the the last hospital you you were in in Malta we haven't had a response from them there's also been a letter from more than 100 doctors in Malta off the back of your case to push for change, to be allowed to help women like yourself in this situation. I should say you did get that treatment after that journey was arranged. And, you know, I know you said at the beginning how you're feeling now, but is the medical side complete? Is that finished? Are you safe and well in that respect now? Yeah, they induced labor and I delivered our tiny baby girl. We got to hold her and they were able to avoid surgery. That sometimes has to happen if the you know the delivery isn't complete um so yeah I mean my

body I'm I'm out of the woods I don't I'm not I don't feel strong yet and I'm still having you know I'll still have some sort of aftermath for a while but I'm safe I mean I'm so happy to hear that and that we we talk today. But I know it'd be interesting to hear from you why you want to talk, why you want to speak about what's happened to you, because we're also speaking in light of a big change in your country, a big change in America with the overturning of the Roe v. Wade decision. And we're going to return to that a bit later on because there's lots of legal cases going on at the moment and and lots of changes as the map of america is redrawn

regarding this and what what will be allowed and what won't be allowed but why is it important for you to to talk about what's happened well in the beginning we we got the press involved and started telling our story as kind of a Hail Mary attempt to, you know, save me before we were able to arrange the medevac. But then, you know, we've kind of found ourselves caught up in this whirlwind and the timing is, you know, kind of perfect. And this matters to me. This issue has always mattered to me. And I have the sense that there's a possibility that our suffering won't have been in vain

if we can, if by being honest and sharing the details of our story can help, can add to the conversation on a really, you know, intensely charged global issue. The idea that states in our home country are beginning to implement laws similar to malta's it's kind of mind-boggling and i think you know it's it's before we went through this experience, it had never occurred to us that, you know, we'd never conceived of this set of circumstances where a pregnancy kind of, like an incomplete miscarriage, and that that would fall under the umbrella of

abortion, and that, you know, there's this sort of technicality of fetal heartbeat that doesn't fully fully take into account the viability like is there a baby that can ever be in this world um and then that ill-defined threshold for because sometimes total bans on abortions i understand have a cause for saving the mother's life but what's the? How close do you let her get? And one midwife at Malta, I was pressing on that question. Like, what are you going to do if? What are you going to do when? You know, I get an infection.

And the answers I got were not super direct, but kind of pieced together, you know, that if I got an infection, they would throw more antibiotics at it. Some infections are resistant to antibiotics. I understood my, what I took away from one particular midwife was that if I had an infection and they had exhausted their resources and I was on the, her words, brink of death. Then they might intervene. I find that unacceptable. I mean, I think the other striking thing is how bans on abortion, as you're saying, in this instance, in your case, in your life, you know, can complicate and put at risk women's lives when there is a wanted pregnancy that goes wrong, which is a nuance that is not often in the discussion about rights to do with this part of

what some, you know, describe as a fundamental part of healthcare. Others, of course, have a very different view. Exactly. And that there might not be a viable baby to save or protect. There was no one to protect. She was already lost. Yes. Well, I am very grateful that you are able to talk, especially so soon after what has happened. I wish you and Jay all the best. I hope you have a safe and as comfortable as possible journey home. And thank you for coming on Woman's Hour. Thank you. Andrea Prudente there, talking to us from Mallorca, where she had to travel to

and is now recovering after what happened to her in Malta. And actually a few of you getting in touch to say you've had a similar experience. I'm listening to Woman's Hour. I went through the same horror when I was in the Dominican Republic four and a half months pregnant I lost my waters but surgeons would not intervene as there was still a beating heart we were sent back to our hotel to wait quote for the heart to stop beating as a result my baby died and I began hemorrhaging and by the time we traveled two hours back to the hospital in a taxi I was in septic shock i ended up needing a blood transfusion and nearly died no name on that message but i'm

incredibly grateful you felt you could share that and get in touch uh it's uh it's a very important you know part of this especially at this time when we're talking about certainly the law changing actively as we're speaking in america and as i say, we will come back to that. So do stay with us. More messages coming in on that. Also, many more still coming in about things you would invent specifically for women. I have to say huge range. There's one here, go back to the car, car seatbelts that fit the female form without slicing into your neck or flattening breasts. I'm currently on a long drive from Somerset to Scotland. I'm wearing a scarf

to counteract the first and I adjust the belt by hand frequently to get some relief from the second. Jane says, how about automatically height adjusting kitchen cabinets so I wouldn't have to constantly be standing on a chair to reach them. Christine, a pill to dissolve the fat that accumulates around the middle after

the menopause. Another one about bras, but from a different perspective. Catherine says a genuinely comfortable, attractive bra for people with disabilities, preferably front fastening and made from environmentally friendly fabrics. I have a minor disability and inflexible wrist due to a break and arthritis in my fingers. But putting on a bra is a daily aggravation says Catherine thank you very much for this and more to more to come on this because people are coming to us with all sorts of their lives all parts of their lives that would really help them if it was a bit different a very snazzy but strong pocket that could attach to the front waistband of jeans pants or even dresses with velcro to hold mobile phones

so you don't have to keep in the back pocket. This would be good for women as opposed to men, says Susie. And so they continue. Well, two women who could perhaps help create this are on the line now because two Bristol University graduates, inventors no less, have tried to resolve the issue of the queue for the women's toilets being longer usually than the queue for the men's toilets being longer usually than the queue for the men's if there is such a thing for the men's

very rarely there seems to be and they've invented female urinals at the moment for festivals and large events and where better to test this than Glastonbury and I know they want to go further afield but the creators of what's called Pequel very nice name, Amber

Probin and Hazel McShane join me now. Amber, Hazel, you have inspired the listeners of Women's called Pequel, very nice name, Amber Probin and Hazel McShane. Join me now. Amber, Hazel, you have inspired the listeners of Women's Hour today because they are getting in touch in their droves with what they would like to invite, invite you perhaps to invent, but invent specifically for women. Tell us first of all, what Pequel is. Good morning. Good morning. Hi, thanks for having us on. Thank you. So Pequel is the UK's first squat and go woman's urinal

we're absolutely obsessed with obliterating the woman's toilet queue um we are fed up of waiting in line whilst men can whiz in and out of the urinals so people is a solution for that weight and for that inequality and how does it work can describe it? I've had a look at this online. Yeah, sure. So there's a few key elements to it. So firstly, the pedestal, which is what you actually wee into. This is shaped like a boat,

built up of complex curves to minimise splashback, which you squat over. Yeah, we're absolutely obsessed with not having any splashback. We all squat in many different ways. We want to make sure no one gets splashback. And then also, it's the structure itself is semi-private.

So you don't have to touch anything. You walk around these overlapping screens, but you have the wedge to kind of keep yourself fully private. And you've been trying this at Glastonbury. How's it been going? Yes, it's been amazing. Women have absolutely loved it. We had so much good feedback.

Literally after every woman has come out of the toilets, women have said, we need this more. We want this everywhere. Because at Glastonbury, we were at two locations, the Pyramid Stage and Stone Circle. And women were just absolutely loving it. The Stone Circle's open 24-7. And women were just going in, crossing the site

just to get to that location because they knew they wouldn't have to touch. Is it a case of, in terms of reducing the queue away from the functionality for a moment, is it a case of you've got more of them, which is often the issue, there's only two women's toilets, for instance, in a theatre or a cinema, or is it to do with the functionality that makes the queue shorter? It's a bit of both. So this is definitely an increase in access to facilities, but it's also our design is made to eliminate micro time wasters.

So traditional toilets have like opening and closing of the door, clean the seat that you're about to sit on, awkwardly hover over something, maybe check your phone because you're in a private space. And all these micro time wasters slow down the process of going to the toilet whereas our designers like thought about all those different micro time wasters and eliminated them so instead of a door there's an overlapping screen that you walk around which is still really private but you don't have that time waster it's a squat job so you basically don't have to touch things you have to clean anything down and it's because it's semi

private it means that women have that incentive to get in get out and go so women aren't hanging around looking at their phone any attacks things when you add them all up it is a massive time you're very polite the way you're describing that micro time waste is all because of course you know i'm just a big fan of the deep side and saying aloud at some points what are they doing in there and obviously i don't actually do that, but you know, you do that when you're stressed because you need a wee and you need to go, you want to get back to whatever you're doing.

But then of course there'll be others listening saying it takes me time. And you know, depending on if you are having a period, it takes me a lot longer in there. So you never know what's going on in there. I've got to get, I'm never, I'm never,

you know, knowingly underserving the audience. I hope through my attention to detail. Can you, is it just for wee it's just for we yeah we're interested because 90 percent of women in the queue just need to wait okay we're thinking get those people in and out back on with a date and then those that do need to use a kind of cubicle can right so it's just for we and then in terms of squatting again i want to into this. Some people find it hard to squat. What's your feedback been on that? Yes. So when we started looking at the research behind this,

we realised that there were three different common squat heights. So there was a wide squat, a high squat and a low squat. And we tested this going to like Wetherspoons toilets, talking to women at lots of different parties, standing in queues for clubs or in the street. And we actually found that this design would accommodate all those different squat heights. But we've also, we tested it actually with my mum, first of all.

So, you know, when she squatted down, she was like, I definitely need something to hold on to. So we have got handrails if you need that to pull yourself up with. And also that when you squat down, your heels slightly come up and get off the floor and that may instabilize you so we put the floor slightly slanted just so you have that extra support so there's lots of different changes to help help women feel more comfortable when using the design are you hoping this is going to go indoors not just at festivals that's it so every time people gather women end up waiting in line for the loop.

We've started at festivals here at Glastonbury, running events, but also thinking about universities, schools, shopping malls, airports. We want no women to ever have to wait in line. So we have big, big plans for our future. I'm looking forward to it. This is the beginning, okay? This is what you're banking on at the moment. And you've got other work to do, I have to tell to tell you as inventors because we've got all these ideas coming

in for other things i mean while we're talking d said i'd like to invent a good device to automatically shut down mansplaining so i don't know if that's the next thing that you're can work on are you still at glastonbury perhaps you've got a few hours yeah we're 12 days into being at glastonbury right now in the middle of a field. So yeah, it's been an amazing experience. I bet, I bet. Well, congratulations. And thanks for coming to talk to us about PQOL,

which is a very catchy name. I do like it indeed. Amber Probin and Hazel McShane there. Your message is still coming in around inventions for women. Another one here, I'd like to see banking for women, which recognises lower income during child rearing years and offers support in education so women can qualify for better careers

when children are older. I had such support from my bank, but I had to fight for it. Well, talking of fighting for it, some female scientists may have suspected as much, but now there is new analysis to support their suspicions. Women in science are less likely to have their contributions recognised than their male counterparts, for example, on a scientific paper or named on a patent, speaking to, again, inventions or creations. A team of economists in the US has analysed data from almost 10,000 research teams and found that women also have to work twice as hard as men to earn a credit. Let's talk to the co-author of this study first, Professor Julia Lane from the Wagner School of Public Policy at NYU. Welcome to the programme, Julia. Why take this on?

Well, I think what we were interested in understanding was the workings of science in general. And that requires looking at research teams. And so one of the things that we were, we can do with this kind of data is to look at the productivity of different teams. So what we were found was, well, women were producing less in terms of publications and patents than men. This is quite well known. And it's been attributed to things like, well, women are more junior. They're in different fields.

They take family leave and so on. But actually, we found that the reason that women were publishing or a reason that women were publishing less than men was actually they weren't getting the credit so a similar woman uh at a sim in the same field with the same at the same career stage who was spending the same amount of time in the project was was actually getting named much less in journal articles, 13% less, lower probability of being named. Over 50% lower probability of being named as a co-inventor on a patent. So the issue wasn't one of lower productivity. It was a lower likelihood of being named even having done the same amount of work. And why do you think that's important to know, to actually have this? Well, in science,

as in many other fields, your career and your future, it depends on your output. Now, in science, that's measured by patents and by publications. And so if you're not named, your career progression is harmed. And, you know, it's going to have an impact on the junior women, for example. They're less likely to stay in. If they're not going to get promoted, they're going to exit. More broadly, the challenge is that that reduces the quality of people who go into science. So that's going to, in the longer term, negatively affect the kinds of ideas that come in and the quality of science that's being done. And for you now, knowing this, what do you think can be done about it? I mean,

I suppose that's the issue. That's not necessarily your role. But do you think there can be change by having this? Yeah, well, we thought a lot about that, obviously, because we were quite shocked by the degree of the gap. I think anecdotally, there'd been stories like Rosalind Franklin not getting named to a seminal paper on the structure of DNA and consequently, well, she died before the Nobel Prize, but the guys got the Nobel Prize. price. So there are actually two things. The first is that I don't think there are necessarily any bad guys here. The issue is that science has moved from being a quite small scale endeavor to being quite large teams. So over the past 20, 30 years, because it's so much work that needs to be done, a scientist who is not trained to manage people, all of a sudden is working with quite large groups of very disparate individuals. And so managing teams is really important, but we're not trained to do that. So one thing to do would be, as part of a basic degree,

get trained with how to work with diverse teams. People, women, obviously, part of the issue is that, as many of the responses on the survey did, was say, speak up. If you're foreign born, if it's not your native language if you're a minority if you're first generation student uh learning how to manage people who are not as likely to speak up so that's step number one okay and just very briefly step number two i want to bring in our other guests because i don't want to hear i want to hear her speak up what's step number two? Step number two is to like any business, science is a

business, capture data that captures the problem of people who aren't getting seen. So know what is actually happening within your business on this. Let's bring in Monica Grady, CBE Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at

the Open University. Are you surprised by this data to support some suspicions that have existed with some women working in science for a while? Very sadly, I'm not surprised at all. I mean, it's something that everybody sort of knows about. In the UK, we have been trying to tackle this by profile raising of women. And so this idea of, OK, make sure if you're organising a conference, you've got women keynote speakers. Make sure if you're organising a conference, there are women who are chairing the sessions. So, you know, it's a form of positive discrimination, if you like, or affirmative discrimination, because unless those unless women come forward on a scene. So it's also partly the the mentoring that is required by senior people, both men and women, to make sure that more junior staff are recognised. We have a lot of work to do for early career researchers,

trying to make sure that their profile is enhanced, that they are encouraged to do things like, you know, be at conferences and so on and so forth, as well as getting names on papers. There is another very important, crucial set of people who also are achieving recognition, and those are technical support staff. Now, in the past, you know, you have your technical support staff who are working behind the scenes, who might be running some of the experiments, designing things. Don't necessarily get their names on the papers, don't get the acknowledgement. And there are a lot of women in those jobs because they've taken career breaks, they've perhaps lost some of the impetus of the academic track, but they come back into laboratories and so on. And they are some of the most important experts we have. And now there are technicians charters to recognise support staff, make sure that they get the recognition they deserve. And we have a big programme called Athena Swan for Science,

which is now going towards the humanities, to help make sure that we have equality for women publishing and so on. Well, it sounds like work, as you say, has already been ongoing, but perhaps this research will also help to have as evidence, if it's not believed that there is an issue, as you say, has already been ongoing, but perhaps this research will also help to have as evidence if it's not believed that there is an issue, as it were. Monica Grady, thank you very much for telling us how it is, and also, of course, from a UK perspective,

what's already been done and in play. Very interesting to hear. Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University. We've got to leave this particular topic there. And Professor Julia Lane there, who was one of the co-authors of this study, talking about inventions and patents and getting your dues on this. More messages about what you would create for women as someone who pretty much wears tights most days of the year. Teresa has caught my interest here, saying I'm calling for the invention of tights with a looser more comfortable waistband amen Teresa I'm only petite but still have a fight on my hands to stretch these instruments

of torture over my hips only to feel squeezed in half like an overly filled sausage skin tights were clearly designed by men she suspects I don't know let's look into that I know what you mean and then when they get really comfortable which is when I like then they start falling down and I look like a penguin if you were to lift up my skirt or dress. But that's a whole other discussion. A double coat hook, please, in public toilets, says Val. One for coat, one for handbag. So don't have to put them on the floor or one on the floor. And so the suggestions keep coming in. But yesterday, we did start our programme by looking at that newly redrawn map of the United States after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending

the constitutional nationwide right to abortion. That landmark legal decision is meaning a lot of different things. As I talked to you, abortion is now legally banned in at least nine US states with more to follow as so-called trigger laws clear the necessary hurdles. Legal cases are happening right now to try and stop more laws coming into place. In a moment, I'll be speaking to someone very familiar with that, Jessica Aarons, a reproductive policy expert and activist based in Washington, currently working at the American Civil Liberties Union. But before I speak to Jessica, let's hear from one of the women who has welcomed the ruling. Rebecca Kiesling is an activist and an attorney who speaks as someone who was conceived through rape.

Speaking to Woman's Eye yesterday afternoon, she gave her reaction to the news. I was absolutely thrilled when I heard that Roe v. Wade was overturned. I've worked my entire adult life for this. I was conceived in rape and almost aborted it to illegal abortions. But the 1931 law in Michigan protected me. And I literally owe my birth to the law, which protected me exactly four years before Roe versus Wade. And it's out of gratitude for my own life being spared that I would like to do the same for others. I'm happy to see that there are a multitude of states who are now passing laws right away. Some of them are

part-time legislatures, and they're going into session right now, which is fairly extraordinary, in order to pass abortion bans right away. There were many states who had already passed abortion bans recently, but a lot of legislatures were afraid to do so because if you lose a case, you end up having to pay the legal fees of the opposition and they didn't want to be ordered to pay the legal fees for Planned Parenthood and the abortion lobby. So now that there's a green light, a lot of states are passing laws. Rebecca Kiesling there. I can now talk to Jessica Ahrens from the American Civil Liberties Union. Jessica, welcome to the programme.

Thank you. Good morning. I just want to take a moment to get your reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. It happened on Friday, certainly afternoon UK time. It's been a few days now. There's a lot of action happening in terms of how this will change depending on where you live. But where were you and what are your thoughts a few days later? Well, it's absolutely a devastating ruling. It was something we were expecting, we knew was coming, and yet didn't make it any easier when it actually occurred. I heard someone liken it to knowing a loved one is going to die. And then actually when they do die, it's quite a different moment.

We're hearing stories of women who, you know, were in the waiting room about to get their procedure and turned away and sent home with no hope for being able to come back the following week. These are women who already had traveled from Texas to Arkansas or Alabama who had waited a month to get the appointment that they had. And now we're turned away and are going to have to somehow get an appointment halfway across the country and muster the resources to get there. And I think in many instances, they won't be able to do so. They're going to be forced to carry pregnancies to term that they don't want.

And they know what's best for themselves. This isn't something the government should be deciding for them. Forced pregnancy has life-altering consequences, including significant health risks. And especially in a country such as the United States with such high with such a severe maternal mortality rate especially for black women who are more than three times as likely than white women to die from pregnancy or childbirth it can be a death sentence just as you heard from the the woman you spoke to earlier this morning. Well yes there's a particular nuance in that story

that perhaps people are not aware of and why would they be necessarily? And even if they are anti-abortion, that's an area of discussion that actually I don't hear very often about how these laws may affect those who are having a wanted pregnancy that's no longer possible and then the safety of the woman involved. I mentioned about legal cases happening at the moment. Not every state was completely ready and primed

to ban abortion with that ruling on Friday. Could you give us a flavour of some of the battles? I know that the American Civil Liberties Union are involved in some of this. Is this an attempt to stop states going forward with the banning or is it to try and water down some of the circumstances in which abortion will be banned? the bans from going into effect or even just buy us a little more time so that more people can get the care that they need in their home state or where they were originally scheduled. And so it really is a very rapidly developing, unfolding situation. We have, we expect up to half the states to ultimately ban abortion

in the U.S., and about a dozen of them have what we call trigger bans. So these are bans that were designed after Roe was in effect, but they were designed to be triggered by Roe being overturned and go into effect immediately or shortly after Roe is overturned. And so in large part, those are the laws that we see going into effect right now. And then there are also some pre-Roe bans that were locked under Roe and now have been allowed to be revived and go back into effect, including Texas, where that's the very ban that had been struck down in Roe. It was never repealed from the books. It is now back in effect.

How are those battles going? Have there been any victories, as it were, from your side? Yeah, it is, again, it's state by state. It is, even for me, hard to keep up with it all. But we did just get word yesterday that Utah's trigger ban, which had gone into effect on Friday, has been blocked. It has been paused, at least while the litigation pursues. So that is good news from our point of view, to be sure. And in some cases, there have been orders of briefings. And so we have a few extra weeks at the very least before court is going to rule. We have ongoing litigation in Florida where we expect a ruling from the judge by the end of the week. Yesterday, I had a former vice president of Republicans overseas on Jan Halper Hayes. She talked about if you had an unwanted pregnancy, if you were a woman with an unwanted pregnancy, I should say, and you were in a state which was now hostile to abortion. I asked

her, what should you do? One of her responses, when she also mentioned employers helping, was to either go to Planned Parenthood or to go to an NGO. How feasible is that in those states? In states where abortion is banned, it will be illegal, or it already is in many cases, to get an abortion there. Most of these bans are total bans with very limited life exceptions. If that, that are, again, as your earlier conversation revealed, it means that someone might have to be on the table, literally dying on the table before the medical staff will intervene. No, the options available to people in states that have banned abortion are to travel out of state where to a place where it's available, which requires resources, which requires sick leave, which requires childcare and travel logistics and can be absolutely insurmountable, especially for

folks like undocumented immigrants who may have to and may not be able to cross internal checkpoints. And so there's just, you know, or they have to remain pregnant against their will, or they might consider self-managed abortion, which can be safe with the proper medication and information, but again, carries high legal risks. You're talking about pills there in the sense of... Yes, generally ordering pills online. Yes, because we've seen a rise.

There's a number of reports about the rise of pills as well. But as you say, laws perhaps coming in to monitor that as well and how that will work. And of course, people are very concerned about it doesn't ban abortion, but it bans safe abortion. So what will then return perhaps as a reality to some women's lives? Jessica, thank you very much for talking to us this morning. Jessica Aarons from the American Civil Liberties Union. And thank you to you. Many suggestions for inventions this morning.

I love this one from Sushi who says, especially when I had young children, I would have liked to have invented a machine, a bit like an airport metal security frame, that I walked through and it instantly changed me into my pyjamas. I'm sure women and men would benefit. It's a bit sci-fi. I don't know. I love it. Back tomorrow with you at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. Hello, I'm Stephen Fry and I heartily recommend you listen to the BBC's History Podcast. again for the next one. on a historical grand tour from naughty nuns who became stitching sisters to a globe-trotting Maghrebi.

And three, well, it's fun. And don't we all need a little bit of that at the moment? You can find it on BBC Sounds, don't you know? So subscribe to

You're Dead to Me and have yourself a giggle as you learn. You've earned it. 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 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.