Woman's Hour - Arwa Mahdawi, Cinderella & Sexual Harassment in Schools

Episode Date: November 26, 2021

Do women make better leaders? If so, what can they teach us? Strong Female Lead - Lessons From Women in Power, a new book by the journalist Arwa Mahdawi, argues that a rigid and masculine model of leadership is not up to tackling the complex problems we are facing in the world today. Arwa says ‘If we want to save the world, it’s time we stopped telling women to act like men and started telling everyone to lead like women.’ She draws on the pandemic and beyond, to showcase the leadership skills women are displaying that she believes everyone can learn from.This week MPs have backed a ban on virginity testing in England, after the government called it "indefensible". Anyone helping girls or women get the tests, which includes an intrusive vaginal examination, could face up to five years in prison. But campaigners have also said they want a ban on hymenoplasty, a practice involving cosmetic surgery to reconstruct the hymen. Natasha Rattu, CEO of Karma Nirvana, an organisation that supports victims of honour-based abuse and forced marriage, tells us why this further step needs to be taken.Presenter Zara McDermott’s new BBC documentary explores sexual harassment, teenagers, and what impact school is having. We speak to Zara and two contributors who feature in the documentary - activist Zan Moon and 14 year old Trinity.This week the Home Affairs Select Committee released a report revealing that only one in five of an estimated 15,000 eligible claimants had applied to the Windrush Compensation Scheme, and only 5% of victims have been compensated. They’ve called for the scheme to be transferred from the Home Office to an independent organisation. We’re joined by lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie to discuss the findings.We discuss the ongoing appeal of the Cinderella story with Faye Campbell who is playing Cinderella at York Theatre Royal and Dr Nicola Darwood who recently co-edited a new book with Alexis Weedon called Re-telling Cinderella: Cultural and Creative Transformations.

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Morning all. Here's a question for you. Do women make better leaders than men? Men have run things for a very long time, businesses, countries, barbecues, and they've done it in their way and built a certain culture, a culture that often women have to fit into to get ahead. But can things be done differently?

What do you think? Have you had a female boss, manager, team leader? Did it make a difference to the environment? We've had a tweet in already that says, the best bosses I've had have been women, largely because they knew how to deal with people. Do you agree? You can text us on 84844.

You can contact us via social media as well. It's at BBC Woman's Hour. Or of course, you can email us through our website with your thoughts. Well, journalist Awa Madawi has written a book looking into just this. And we'll be talking to us about the lessons we can learn from women in power. Also on Woman's Hour today, two updates, one on virginity testing that MPs have called indefensible and the other on the Windrush scandal and why only a fraction of victims have received compensation.

We'll also be discussing a powerful new BBC Three documentary looking into sexual harassment in schools and amongst teenagers. And Cinderella, why has the story of the girl who gets to go to the ball captured our imaginations for generations?

I'll be talking to Cinders to get her take. But before any of that, I'd like you all to spare a thought for the Conservative MP, Nick Fletcher. In an international men's day debate in Parliament yesterday afternoon, he tried to make a serious point about men and crime. But what he said about Doctor Who,

played most recently by Jodie Whittaker, has grabbed the headlines. Instead, take a listen. Everywhere, not at least within the cultural sphere, there seems to be a call from a tiny yet very vocal minority that every male character or good role model must have a female replacement. One only needs to look at the discussions surrounding who will play the next James Bond. And it's not just James Bond. In recent years, we have seen Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Luke Skywalker, The Equaliser, all replaced by women. And men are left with The Craze and Tommy Shelby. Is there any wonder we are seeing so many young men committing crime?

Nodding away? Or have you just spat your tea out? I'd love to hear your thoughts about that. Afterwards, he did clarify on Twitter that he wasn't linking a female Doctor Who with crime being committed by men. He was just trying to say that boys and young men need positive role models in the media too,

just like women and girls. What do you think 84844 is the number to text? But first, do women make better leaders? If so, what can they teach us? Strong Female Lead, Lessons from Women in Power, is a new book by journalist Awa Madawi, and she argues that a rigid and masculine model of leadership is not up to tackling the complex problems we're facing in the world today.

Awa says, if we want to save the world, it's time we stopped telling women to act like men and started telling everyone to lead like women. She draws on the pandemic and beyond to showcase the leadership skills women are displaying that she believes everyone can learn from.

And I'm delighted to say Arwa joins me now in the studio, in the flesh. I mean, this couldn't be better timing, this comment from Nick Fletcher for you, because literally on page two of your book, you say when Jodie Whittaker was cast as the first female Doctor Who, for example, there were men who lamented the loss of a role model for boys. What do you think? I know Nick Fletcher's not even being original. Jodie Whittaker seems to have triggered a lot of men.

And I find it so fascinating that men seem to think there are no male role models anymore. I mean, there was a recent study that found that there are more statues of animals in London than statues of named women. In America, there are more monuments to mermaids than there are to congresswomen. How on earth can anyone say there are no male role models? And what I open my book with is actually saying that men often don't have female role models. When Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, the notorious RBG, some of the politicians tweeted about what a great role model she was for women. It's like because as as I said that a whole model of leadership is gendered very masculine it's it's not it you know we associate leadership with masculine traits and women as as you mentioned have been told throughout their working lives that if they want to get to the top they've got to act more like men you know stop saying sorry

be more assertive take up more space that doesn't actually make for better leaders. We've really sort of just confused confidence with competence. And I don't think that's the way forward. So why did you want to write the book? Well, I mean, this issue is something that's really irritated me throughout my career, this like being told, don't say sorry, be more assertive, like basically, you know, women, I don't think that women and men are hardwired differently, but we are socialized very differently. And we are rewarded for different traits. And, you know, as a woman, you're rewarded by society, if you've been nurturing and compassionate, you're

sort of, but when you get into the working world, you're told that all of these things, these, quote, unquote, feminine qualities are actually weaknesses, and they're sort of pathologized, and actually know their strengths. And, you know, I feel that very strongly. And during the pandemic, there was a sort of, at the very beginning of the pandemic, there was a sort of focus on how a lot of countries led by women seem to be doing better. And there was a focus on how actually, maybe we need a different style of leadership that, you know, the very beginning of the pandemic, the like strong men like Bolsonaro, Trump and Boris Johnson, they were all acting as if they could like arm wrestle the coronavirus to the ground. And, you know, sort of a cavalier attitude that I think... And the comparisons to war.

Yeah, lots and lots of comparisons to war. And you can't fight a virus like you can fight, you know, a country. And people started to look towards people like Jacinda Ardern, Angela Merkel, some more compassionate styles of leadership. There was a lot of focus on how qualified Angela Merkel was versus how unqualified the likes of Donald Trump were. And it made people sort of talk a bit more about how women often have to be so much more competent to get into these, to get into leadership roles than men who, you know, we're often told, oh, we live in a meritocracy. But like, we do not live in a meritocracy. There's been study after study that shows that mediocre men often rise to the top. It's a lot harder for women to get there.

And when they do, it's often because they deserve it more. Well, lots of people getting in touch already. Someone else has said the best bosses I've had have been women, largely because they know how to deal with people. I already read that one. I've never experienced a good woman boss. All female bosses I've experienced have suffered with Queen Bee Syndrome. Well, I actually do write about that in the book.

I note that there is this actual stereotype of female bosses not being nice. And one of the best bosses I've ever had was a woman, one of the worst bosses I've ever had was a woman. And there is such a thing as Queen Bee Syndrome. When you have worked in a very masculine environment, you've had to fight your way to the top. And it's the same with minorities, minorities actually that you want to be like the one and you feel like there's no room for anyone else but i think that's a generational

thing and things are changing and also women we we all hold women to much higher standards than we hold men so everyone's had horrible bosses male bosses as well but you know people don't think all men are bad bosses in the same way that people think women make bad bosses. So there is a sort of like, internalized misogyny there as well. But I think that one reason we have this like, stereotypical bad female bosses is because women have always thought that to get ahead, they have to act like men. And so they have to even act sort of more aggressive than men, more competitive than men. have you know opening doors not pulling the ladder up uh you know after them but really kind of like breaking down barriers and mentoring people and pulling people in so the book you do talk about specific examples and you take various female leaders in different positions and talk

about their style and you've mentioned nadia whittem so talk us a bit tell us a bit more about about nadia whittem and why you picked her to talk about in the book well one reason i picked nadia whittem is that when she got her to talk about in the book? Well, one reason I picked Nadia Wittemann is that when she got elected, she specifically said, I want to be a very different type of leader. You know, I think that a lot of times we don't actually interrogate all of our preconceptions about leadership. Leadership is something we talk a lot about, but we talk sort of around the subject rather than sort of interrogating our biases around it. And I think that it was just interesting for her to be like, to understand, like, I want to actually have a different mold of leadership.

And she name checked like the squad in America in a sort of more intersection, more sort of welcoming style of leadership, more collaborative. And I thought it was amazing what she did with taking the median salary and doing it in a way that was you know not like virtue signaling not saying oh I'm better than everyone else because I'm taking a lower salary than other MPs but doing it as a show of solidarity and represent and saying these are the people that I represent I want to be getting the same salary as them I want to sort of align myself with them I think that um so I think she started she really sort of walked uh walked the walk with that I mean you have you're from the UK and you've spent the last 10 years

living in New York yeah and so you've got an interesting take because you've experienced two very different uh countries and you've lived through the pandemic there and you were not impressed with how Covid was handled in New York why well? Well, we had, I don't know how much people have been following Andrew Cuomo, but Andrew Cuomo was the governor of New York. And at the beginning of the pandemic, he sort of was like a demigod. People thought he was going to be president, next president. He was like really revered because he stepped into a sort of leadership vacuum that Donald Trump had left.

And he did all these daily press briefings. And he, you know, he gave everyone like the reassurance that they needed this idea that someone was in control, because it felt like nobody was in control. And he won an Emmy for his performance, which is very fitting, because it was a performance, you know, he acted like this, you know, great leader who had everything under control. And one reason he was so sort of convincing is because of his, you know, he's known for being extremely arrogant and like his ego, it made him project a very good image, but his ego actually made him not do a good job on the ground. On the actual ground, he was doing a terrible job of managing the crisis in New York. Him and Mayor de Blasio are very well known for just fighting with each other nonstop. Their egos are just like constantly battling against each other.

So they were just having fights about when there should be a lockdown. De Blasio said there would be a lockdown. Cuomo literally went on a podcast the next day and said, not unless I say so. And all of that fighting, you know, it's it, it costs lives. There's been a study that showed that if New York went into lockdown a week earlier, thousands of lives would have been saved. And now, of course, Cuomo's, you know, star has come crashing down and people realised he didn't do a great job. But how do we know two women would have done anything any differently? Well, actually, we don't.

And what's interesting, I want to make a very clear distinction that my book is not saying that women are better leaders, you know, per se. I'm not I'm definitely not arguing that we need more female leaders. That is not the focus of my book, because I think that is a very superficial argument saying we need more women just for the sake of it. We can all name some extremely bad female leaders. And those what I'm saying is that we need a more quote unquote feminine style of leadership, one that is more compassionate, collaborative, less ego driven. And you can like I think it's important to use the terms masculine and feminine because they are gendered styles of leadership. Name the bad female oh well pretty patel i think um lots of them in america at the moment kristin cinema kirsten cinema um and what about the other side on the labor side oh on labor side oh i can think

of a few but uh yeah i mean you you do actually talk about like you do actually talk about various women and their styles of leadership. And I'd like you to tell us about the KK Shalaja in Kerala. She's a very interesting case. Yeah, so she's nicknamed the coronavirus slayer. And she's a sort of fascinating, I think she's 65 now. I mean, unassuming is a very sexist word but she's because but she looks sort of like a cuddly grandmother and and again it's like it shows your unconscious biases that you look at someone like her and you think you don't immediately

think of her as this like fearless warrior you know um and she just did a an amazing job with handling um the coronavirus in the early days in Kerala. She had had a previous experience with something called Nipah virus, which is even sort of scarier is what the movie Contagion was partly based on. And so she was very much extremely prepared. One amazing thing about her is she went to the village with the N nipah virus, where where it had started and where people were so scared and, you know, people were afraid to go there. And she sort of went there, not in the sort of Boris Johnson way of I'm going to go into hospitals, not wearing a mask to prove how masculine I am. She took a lot of precautions, but she went to talk to people directly to show that, like the government was on their side and with them. but doing it in a sensible way, not in a way, you know, that was just cavalier. And she's been written about quite extensively. I think it's a she's very much an example of of someone who bucks our ideas of what a leader looks like and how a leader acts and how she used to be a teacher. And I think that a lot of the qualities that teachers have are so important for leaders being able to talk to people of different understandings, different abilities, being

able to communicate very clearly because a lot of political rhetoric is not really about clear communication. That's actually the opposite of what it's about. It's about sort of ambiguity and eloquence. And the teachers have to communicate. That's their job. They what it's about. It's about sort of, you know, ambiguity and eloquence. And the teachers have to communicate. That's their job. They have to get people to understand. And then that breeds something else that you talk about in the book, trust. I know there's been I mean, it's funny, there's such a debate, like a conversation about, oh, the decline of trust. And it's like, obviously, there's a decline of trust because a lot of politicians have not earned our trust.

You know, expenses, scandals, lobbying scandals, like, of course, there's a decline of trust. And I think it's really important that we, that leaders find, you know, new ways to communicate and build transparency. transgender woman I talk about or she's now post-gender Audrey Tang the digital minister of Taiwan whose entire job really is about building transparency in government every single interview she does every single thing she does in an official capacity is recorded and published like nothing is hidden and I think that is just like I'd love to see more politicians do that um well we'll have to see whether that happens. Arwa, thank you so much. The book came out yesterday.

It did. Strong Female Lead Lessons from Women in Power. Thank you very much. Lots of you getting in touch. Sue says, my son, age three, was watching Blue Peter about fighter pilots. The first woman to do it. They told him women can be fighter pilots. He said, no, another job I can't do and stomped off into a sulk.

He's only three. Jen says, I wonder if Nick Fletcher considered that politicians could become positive role models for young men. And Duncan says, my best and worst bosses were women. The awful women seem to be emulating

the worst aspects of male bosses or trying to be even worse than them. 84844 is the number to text. Now, this week, MPs have backed a ban on virginity testing in England after the government called it indefensible. Anyone helping girls or women to get tests, which includes an intrusive vaginal examination, could face up to five years in prison.

But campaigners have also said they want a ban on hymenoplasty, a practice involving cosmetic surgery to reconstruct the hymen. Karma Nirvana is an organisation that supports victims of honour-based abuse and forced marriage. Their CEO, Natasha Ratu, joins me now. Welcome to Woman's Hour, Natasha. What's your response to the announcement on Tuesday? It's absolutely fantastic, Anita. A huge celebration.

This has been a campaign that's relatively short in comparison to some of our others. It's been a couple of years that we've been campaigning to bring this change about. And we heard in the summer that the government committed in their tackling violence against women and girls strategy to commit in banning virginity testing. So we're absolutely delighted that they followed through with that this week. Now, the government announced their violence against women's strategy back in July, but they didn't announce any bans at the same time. Why is it important that both virginity testing and the hymenoplasty are banned at the same time? Because at the moment, it's just one that they're talking about. Yes, that's right. So you're absolutely correct in the strategy.

They did commit to virginity testing, but didn't go far enough to include banning hymenoplasty. And from our perspective, the two issues are inextricably linked. You cannot ban one without the other. In fact, you know, before you have hymenoplasty, you have a virginity test to check the hymen beforehand. And the two issues are very much linked to these repressive attitudes and beliefs linked to female sexuality and myths held around virginity. So it's so vital that the government bans both because it's also signalling a message that actually some practices are OK or less harmful but in our eyes and as we see it through the national helpline that we deliver and is commissioned by the home office we hear that both issues are just as harmful as each other and in fact in some respects that the hymenoplasty and the surgery the physical trauma that people have involved in the surgery and the lifelong psychological harms that go hand in hand with that.

You know, we hear about that for years and years after it's happened. And let's talk about the hymenoplasty a bit more because it is a myth that if a woman doesn't have a hymen that she must have had penetrative sex because there can be all sorts of reasons why she doesn't have one. But why does the myth still persist why do people still think it it's about control it's ultimately about controlling female sexual behavior it's about ensuring that they behave within the parameters that are you know quote unquote acceptable this is all about abuse this is a form of violence against women and girls

and that is why legislating is kind of just one part of the solution the other bigger part of the solution is the education we're very conscious that there are many women and girls that are taught about their bodies in a particular way and that myth that's perpetuated that you know the hymen can only um break if you've had sexual intercourse as a false one but that's what women and girls are led to believe so there needs to be some education about the female body for them to know that actually some women aren't born with a hymen because then i mean some because the women then don't see it as abuse absolutely they they just accept that that, well, the suggestion is that if my hymen is not intact, that I've breached this code of honour,

that I've brought shame and there's huge stigma as well attached to that. So, yeah, absolutely, you're right on that point. So this is about education, isn't it? And how do you get that message out? How are young women not aware of this, that it is abuse? And it's a violation of their human rights. Absolutely. And the World Health Organization is very clear that it is.

And I suppose the only way that we can really educate people is by having the law as the framework to back up what we're saying that empowers people like myself and other campaigners and there are many in this space to to actually give that support and help and guidance to victims on the ground but equally encourages them to recognize that this is abuse it takes away the normalization and legitimacy that perpetrators hand down that people don't recognise it as abuse. So creating the law helps us to do that. But the education has to follow and the law will give us the framework to be able to do that. I think also with this issue in particular, because it's linked

to sexual behaviour, and there's so much stigma and shame attached to talking about sexual behaviour. We've got to make that more acceptable to talk about. So that's also part of the solution in our view as well. Now you're on the Department of Health expert panel and they're having their third and final meeting today before the report is published in a couple of weeks. What action do you hope the government is going to take based on your report? We hope, and this is Carmen Havana's big hope, that they do also ban hymenoplasty too. We hope to see that to be something that they recommend in the report and that the government heed the advice of that panel.

So that's what we would hope to see, that they not only ban virginity testing, we've got that kind of over the line, let's get hyaluronidine over the line too. Now, Natasha, you work with women day in, day out. They come to you, they use your services at Karma Nirvana and you've been going for a long time. What kind of stories are you hearing? Some of the most horrendous stories. I mean, we've seen since we're talking about this issue now, we're making it more visible that we're getting more people coming forward.

Already, we're making it more acceptable for people to come forward. But we've had stories of people who have been victims of rape who are then forced to have hymenoplasty so that they bleed on their wedding night and retain their honour. And actually, hymenoplasty doesn't ensure that. So in some respects, it increases their risk if they don't bleed. And we're hearing from women and girls who are controlled from a very, very young age. We've had one case recently of a girl and this was the lady that was a victim of rape um who had a virginity test and was perceived as failing that when they inspected her hymen she was then she managed to leave but what we have to understand because this is under

a border spectrum of honor-based abuse many victims when they do leave they leave without any support they don't have not even a single perpetrator often they're leaving families and communities and sadly this victim did go back to the situation and went on to then have hymenoplasty which was carried out in the home without any anesthesia um and we're continuing to support her and we hope that at some point she will gain that courage to leave. They're the most harrowing of cases that we come across. Is there a worry that if hymenoplasty is banned that actually more of that will happen, that it goes on but happens underground?

Well, the speculation of that, as there was speculation of driving the issue underground when the government wanted to ban forced marriage, but in fact, when forced marriage was criminalised, we saw the opposite, because we're educating people that this is abuse and as such, they come forward, not necessarily to police,

but to agencies like ours. They talk about it. We're making it more visible. And as I said, since this campaign has been running, we've already had more people coming forward. So I imagine that actually we will see the very opposite. We'll find that more people do come forward. Natasha Ratu from Karma Nirvana,

thank you very much for speaking to me this morning. Thank you. Now, sexual harassment in schools and among teenagers has become a major concern for campaigners and government officials alike. Thank you. explores rape culture and what role the education system plays. Last week, I spoke to Zahra, alongside two young women who feature in the documentary, Zan Moon, the creator of Screen Grab Time, an Instagram page sharing screenshots of the inappropriate messages so many young women are sent, and Trinity, who's 14,

a close friend of Trinity's, took her own life earlier this year. Trinity's friend, Samina, said she was raped. She reported it, but the boy disputed it. took her own life earlier this year. Trinity's friend Samina said she was raped. She reported it, but the boy disputed it. No DNA evidence was found and no charges were made. It's a heartbreaking story to hear, but a really important one to hear too. I started by asking Zara why now felt like the right time to make this documentary, and she told me about an incident

that happened to her four years ago. Zara reported the assault, but the boy was never found and no charges were made. So I made my first film Revenge Porn last year and I had such an incredible response to that film but I think Revenge Porn only told a very small part of a story of what's going on in our schools right now. You start from a really interesting point, Zara. You start from your own experience of a sexual assault. That was very courageous of you to share that information at the beginning of this documentary. Why did you feel that was important? I think that the assault that happened to me, it really kind of shook me up a bit because I think

in those situations as a woman we should never feel unsafe especially in broad daylight and you know walking home especially if there's a school boy behind me I shouldn't feel unsafe and in that situation where all the odds were with me in terms of my safety it was broad daylight I was I was close to my home I still ended up being assaulted by this you know this I would say is around 15 years old and I'm safe and I'm okay but what about the next time this young boy decides to to assault a young girl is it going to be you know in the dark down an alley is the girl going to be younger is she not going to be able to fight him off and it put all these thoughts in my head and I've kind of buried it for a while. But now when making this film, it just felt right

to speak about my experience and what happened to me. That's a really brave place to start, Zara. And what makes this film so powerful, and it is in so many ways, is that you then go off to talk about sexual harassment, but for teenagers, and you're going to schools. So we see you go off to talk about sexual harassment, but for teenagers and you're going to schools. So we see you go off on a journey to explore this subject matter further. Yeah. And I think that this, this film was a massive journey for me. I think, you know, having those conversations and starting those conversations, especially with boys and young men um was so important for me because there's so much uh that goes on in schools that I think the schools are

struggling to to deal with and know how to deal with and it's you know it's a really hard position for teachers to be in um especially when reporting because I feel like there's not really a massive amount of support for schools and teachers with you you know, any kind of sexual assault cases. And I think there is still a bit of a culture in schools of, oh, it's kind of kids messing around. But actually, there's a lot more sinister activities that are going on, that maybe aren't being reported, aren't being talked about enough, there's not a good structure in order for teachers to be able to report, there's not a good structure for students to be able to report about what's you know what they're experiencing and I think there's just a massive disconnect at the moment

and so much is going on and people just aren't wanting to talk about it this film for me is trying to break that mold and enable students to be able to feel comfortable talk to their teachers and teachers to be able to talk to their students and parents to be able to feel comfortable, talk to their teachers and teachers to be able to talk to their students and parents to be able to broach with their children. You know, if this is happening to you, please talk to us. Please talk to the school. Talk to your teachers. And I have no doubt that when this programme goes out, that that is what it will do. It will spark conversations.

And in the meantime, whilst pupils can't talk to their parents or teachers, there are other places where young people can talk about their experiences and that's where zan you come in zan moon you've set up um screen grab them what is that yeah so screen grab them is an instagram page which is uh aimed at exposing uh misogyny and rape culture um through image-based evidence and screenshot evidence and this was set up off the back of my open letter which um again was uh sent out to multiple different schools uh with a list of testimonies of sexual assault and harassment throughout um it's actually 14 pages of testimonies of assault that's happened at these schools

and um i found that as that sort of hit the press um and as that circulated i was being questioned on the validity of some of those testimonies um which is incredibly frustrating um but i thought what can i do to combat that and i thought well we have a bank of evidence in our phones, in our chat histories. And all it takes is a quick chat search of a buzzword, for example, nude or pic or slag. And, you know, we have hundreds of conversations popping up from our past. And I think for far too long, social media has been part of the problem so exacerbating um misogyny and rape culture so screen grab then was a name to kind of flip that around and use social media to our advantage by exposing exposing it through evidence and so

people are just literally screen grabbing conversations they've had with mostly young men but also young women being sexually explicit and they send it to you and you put them on the instagram account that's exactly it and i tag the schools of the young boys in the posts in an effort to urge them into action is it mainly young boys uh yeah well there's a massive range um young boys underage boys um obviously image-based violence is is one of the main kind of culprits of of sexual harassment online and coercion into sending nude pictures and sharing them um but also just outright rape threats um name like sort of slut shaming um and just sort of online harassment and bullying.

But then there's also quite scary kind of innovations and technology which have allowed more serious kind of kinds of online abuse, such as these apps where you can anonymously post questions and vote on answers. So boys have been using that to rate girls or sort of post graphic pictures of them and then people vote on which one's the best. And that was quite a sort of scary thing for me to see that has changed in recent years, a sort the story of your friend Samina comes into the program. Tell us in your own words who Samina was and what happened to her. Samina, she was 12 and she got bullies online. So she got bullies and she had men messaging her online like social media um messaging her just asking her for

nudes asking her to send pictures of herself asking her to do things in person I think it was a bit of it in schools as well I think she had people saying stuff to her in schools as well um so obviously she had the harassment on social media for a while it was a good few good few months to a year um and it was just getting worse and worse people just said even worse stuff they were saying she was lying about things that happened she was there was just so much bullying towards it and i think it all just it all just got to her too much and obviously she talked to me about it she talked to me about how she didn't feel comfortable like boys weren't making her feel comfortable and everything and on the 12th of, she took her own life due to bullying and, like,

harassment online and in school and everywhere, basically. That's so heartbreaking, Trinity. I know. I just think I want, like, a change in the world. Like, I want boys to think that they don't have to ask girls for pictures and stuff for girls to want them because girls as me I want to be treated respectfully by a boy and so does everyone else and I think the things that happen nowadays on social media and boys thinking they can ask to send pictures and do things and everything it can make people feel so uncomfortable and as well as

walking in the street as well and you'll get people coming up to you and you're walking in the street saying things people driving past you and honking the horns. I just think the world needs to come together and just do something about it to stop it all. And back to Samina, your friend who took her own life and she was only 12 years old. From watching the programme, she said she was raped, didn't she? Yeah, she said she was raped by a boy in school not in school but from her school and um she was told that she was lying about it by a few girls and a few like a few just different

people in the schools and stuff because it got out and people said she was lying about it and I think that I think that affected her a lot because obviously it would affect someone if people are saying you're lying about something. And loads of people found out and she got bullying from it. She got bullied really bad. She would get calls on the phone. She didn't want to go to school anymore because of it because she didn't want to see his mates or him or people that know

him and you're and you're 14 now yeah do you do you feel safe walking around even even you must be in your school uniform most of the time yeah um no I don't feel safe it just because it's getting darker early I think it's a lot more scarier because it's not light there's not many people walking around and I just don't I just get scared that someone would be like following me or if you see a car and you think it's following you you get scared in case you know you just feel like you've got like eyes, eyes on you all the time. And I think it's just because of the amount of things that have happened and the amount of stories you've heard about young girls. It just puts a big impact on you.

It's really devastating to hear this. I want to bring Zara and Zan in on this. Zara, I mean, you go and meet Samina's mother. And, you know, just listening to Trinity talk about and Trinity's only 14 and Samina was only 12 when she took her life it's it's beyond heartbreaking yeah it is and that was definitely the hardest part of the film um with these types of peer-on-peer abuse a lot of the time it doesn't just stop at the assault it's the aftermath it's the bullying it's the pressure it's the not being believed it's the not feeling safe in a in a you know in your school where you your child a child should feel safe in those premises

and to think that Samina didn't feel that and didn't even want to go to school because of how how badly the the bullying got is it's really heartbreaking and it's something that really needs to change it's heartbreaking it's sad it's devastating but I feel from watching the program there's lots of young women you you included San who have quite you know you want to shout about this now enough is enough and you're taking it taking action about it aren't you yeah because you. Because you're angry. Yeah, I'm furious. I just, I hear stories like that and it's absolutely heartbreaking. But it's also all too familiar.

It's all too, it's just, it's happened for so long. And I think I'm trying to channel my sort of emotions into activism. And that's the way that I'm coping with it in order to try and fight and create change and make noise. And like you said, you're channeling your energy into activism. And it started with this letter that you wrote with all these testimonies. Tell me about that. Yes. So I grew up in a very privileged education where I was partnered with some very elite private schools I was 15 and um throughout the death of Sarah of recent happenings in around March that you go study um that came out as well that showed four-fifths of women have experienced sexual harassment if this was around the same sort of

time I was having conversations with my friends and as Zara mentioned everybody has a story and I was starting to realize that and from the back of that just felt enormous anger. It's good that we've got powerful young women talking about what needs to happen and it's really great that your voices are being put out there in this program. I want to come back to Trinity for the last word. Trinity has your experience over the past year changed your relationship towards boys and how you feel um yeah because of everything that happened to Samina it's made me think why are boys like this and why why is school's not doing anything about it if a girl goes to the school and they say oh well I've been sexually harassed in school or a boy's tried to lift my

skirt up or something like that the school just will put them in his attention after school there's not much punishment towards it um and I think that's the scary part because otherwise they're just gonna think oh if I just get a detention then I can do it again because it's not much. And I just think everything that happened to Samina as well, it's just made me think, well, the world's not as nice as you think it is and there's a scary part to the world as well and social media and girls, they don't deserve to be treated like this by boys. Last word there from Trinity there and Zan and Zara.

BBC Three's Rape Culture documentary is available to watch on iPlayer now. And if you have any concerns on this topic, there are links to help and advice on the Woman's Hour website. And indeed, if you want to tell us your reaction to that, then please send us an email. Now to an update on the Windrush scandal. You may have heard the calls this week for the Windrush compensation scheme to be taken away from the Home Office and given to an

independent organisation. This comes from a cross-party group of MPs on the Home Affairs Select Committee who've just released a report looking into the operation of the scheme which was launched in April 2019. It says only one in five of an estimated 15,000 eligible claimants had applied to the scheme and only a fraction have received compensation. It found that there was an excessive burden on claimants, inadequate staffing and long delays, and that many victims were too fearful of the Home Office to apply. To discuss the findings of the report, I'm joined by lawyer Jacqueline McKenzie, who represents 180 victims. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Jacqueline, what's your reaction to the report?

Well, I'm not surprised by the report. I gave evidence to the Home Affairs Committee back in December 2020, and a lot of what I said is actually in the report. We're not surprised. I'm currently working with 184 people, but I've worked with many previously up to the stage of getting status documents. We're very familiar with the problems. I mean, the Home Office has said that or the report confirms that 5% of people have applied for compensation. But that's based on a figure of 15,000. But the Home Office originally thought 50,000 people would go through the task force. So I don't actually know. So we could be looking at a much, much worse picture than is indicated. Jacqueline, your line is a little bit scratchy, but it is getting clearer, so we will persist. Why have so few people come forward to claim

the compensation? I think the reasons that so few people have come forward are a number. Firstly, there's the issue of trust, which the report touches on. Most of the people affected are African Caribbean people. The largest group of Jamaicans and there's Nigerians, Ghanaians and after that Barbadians. So it's black people, effectively. And I think, you know, they see the deportation charges happening. They hear the language about refugees. They read about what's happening to European citizens in the country. And in their minds, the hostile environment is still very much alive and well. And so there is

this mistrust. There's also the case of what's happened to them in the first place. That's where the mistrust, you know, some of them were detained, some were deported, removed, barred from coming back, lost jobs. You know the story. And because of all of that, I mean, they're traumatised people and they don't want to go for any more trauma. Some people have actually dropped out. You know, they've started the process. When the Home Office has come back and asked for copious amounts of evidence going back decades, people have thought, well, this isn't worth doing at all. So they've gone.

So I think that's part of the problem. I think another major problem is the fact that the community engagement hasn't been done well at all. At the moment, it's the grassroots community organisations that's holding the windrush together, the issue. Not big NGOs. There's no funding for legal services. There's no legal aid.

There's no proper funding to do this work. So, for instance, when you look at the EU settled status scheme, Home Office sets aside £50 million for 90 community organisations to do work. The windrush, they haven't done that. And I think, why are you treating one group of people in society so differently to another? What they have done, they've created a community fund

of £500,000, but it excludes advocacy. You can't apply for it to do advocacy. And so what's happened instead? The whole series of organisations and businesses across the country have applied for this money, got it, and are scrambling around to put on events, make it for films that are going to be shown in theatres that nobody who's affected by the scandal go to. And so that is problematic. I don't think that there's any evidence at the moment that the community engagement, the advertising, the marketing, what needs to be done to make people aware that this is something that affects

you. A lot of people still haven't understood that it affects them. And here is some help available. And I'd like to hear what some of the clients are saying to you, because in the report, it mentions that victims are faced with impossible demands for evidence, poor communication from the Home Office, which you just talked about, lack of understanding on the issue they face. And for some, the experience of applying for compensation has become a source of further trauma. Yes. And, you know, I always say that this is a group of people, it's a cohort within a cohort, who are traumatised.

You know, for a moment they started getting off those boats and planes. They were traumatised based on reception to them when they arrived. Their experiences because of structural racism in this society have been very debilitating. You know, most of them, not the Windrush generation generally, but the cohort affected by the scandal are people mostly in lower socioeconomic groups, all sorts of issues around health and education. So there are people who are deprived, people people who are challenged people who are traumatized and that trauma is intergenerational and yet you know those who've come forward and so few have but those who've come forward put an application into the home office a lot of people have done

it themselves i've been running pro bono surgeries where we just enable people to put the applications in themselves and then they get back a letter um asking 34 more pieces of evidence, as I've seen in one case. And when I reviewed the application, I'd say 30 to 32 of those questions were totally irrelevant or the evidence was there to start with. And, you know, it's awful. A lot of my clients are women. Are they mainly women coming forward? It's mixed, but I'm particularly concerned about the women because, you know, a lot of them are the heads of households and, you know, they've lost jobs. I had one woman, Yvonne, who had been a catering assistant at a school for about two decades because the school decided to have an initiative of carrying out rights work checks. She couldn't prove her status, even though she'd come to the UK as of carrying out rights work checks.

She couldn't prove her status, even though she'd come to the UK as a child in the 60s. And the school, and I think they're at fault too, just marched her off the building of the security guard, which I think was atrocious behaviour. But they would say they were following the letter of the Home Office about right to work. And she then sat home, not knowing what to do, went into depression. She was the head of her household. Then the scandal broke about a year after and she suddenly realised, well, that's what she was. So she was able to avail herself of settlement and then citizenship. But, you know, she's applied for compensation

and having lost her job at age 61, you know, black woman, I'm not necessarily saying catering assistant isn't a skilled job. I'm sure it's a highly skilled job in many ways, but she doesn't have any paper qualifications. But it's tough. It's really tough. And getting another job at 61.

She's not. She's tried and she hasn't. And yet the Home Office has offered her compensation just for one year. Jackie, I've got to ask you about the recommendation of this being taken away from the Home Office and going to an independent organisation. Yes. How would that work in practice?

Well, going to another organisation is something that I've not necessarily been too keen on because I thought, well, you know, the scandal's four years old this month, even though it came to public prominence in in the spring of 2018 the first series of articles was november 2017 and so we're on in the fourth anniversary the compensation scheme's two and a half years old and you know there have been some improvements i mean we have to say that there's been preliminary payments not been enough of them and i think there's a bit of a sleight of hand about who gets them. And there's the increase in the impact on lives. There have been some improvements. I've had a good experience at the Home Office this week in trying to get an exceptional payment for somebody.

So there's been some positives, but it's slow. It's too slow. And the Home Office say they would make it even slower. They say it would just add another layer. Well, they say, yes, well, that was my concern, that, you know, we're starting to see some little improvements. But I think we've got to the stage now, we're four years after the scandal, the fact that it's still so slow, the fact that people are still being asked for copious

and sometimes ridiculous and unnecessary amounts of evidence, the fact that there's this mistrust, the fact that it's the grassroots that's really holding this together. I think there is now an argument for this to go to an independent body. I don't know what that would look like. The scheme itself has some design flaws. So those need to be sorted out first, particularly around loss of employment and loss of pensions. But I am now coming round to the view that it does need to go. Jacqueline McKenzie, thank you very much. And we will be coming back to this I'm sure at a later date. We have got a statement from the Home Office.

The Home Secretary and the Department remain steadfast in making sure that members of the Windrush generation receive every penny of compensation that they're entitled to and there's no cap on the amount of compensation we'll pay out. Now, it's been a big year for Cinderella. A film version was released, Andrew Lloyd Webber's new musical version is currently in the West End, and the panto season is kicking off. So there are Cinderella's popping up all over the place. With me are Faye Campbell, who's playing Cinderella at York Theatre Royal and has left the rehearsals to speak to us,

and Dr Nicola Darwood, Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bedfordshire. She recently co-edited a new book with Alexis Whedon called Retelling Cinderella, Cultural and Creative Transformations. Welcome to Woman's Hour. Nicola, let me come to you first. There's a Cinderella collection at the University of Bedfordshire. How and why does that exist? Well, it exists because a wonderful lady decided

that she needed to donate her collection of Cinderella ephemera and decided to place them with us which we're very grateful. So there's an astonishing eclectic mix of opera and ballet and pantomime programs and figurines, a Betty Boop doll and some retellings of Cinderella. The earliest collection, one we got in the collection is George Cruikshank's interesting story of Cinderella and the glass slipper, which dates from 1814. So there's a range of material. Dolls that have been played with, tea sets,

there's a plastic wand, tiaras, everything within this wonderful little collection. Now, there's a long history of Cinderella being adapted and changed. Can you give us some examples of what other countries might have done? Well, we've got some really interesting examples in the book. So, for example, there's retellings of Cinderella in Spain. And Maya Lamarck looks at the ways in which the Cinderella tale was modified and adapted, particularly during the Franco years and then following.

So the Franco years versions of Cinderella is the very idea of the woman in the home looking after the family and children. And then as the Franco years disappeared and Spain regained some of its autonomy, the tales then start to tell stories of lesbian relationships, of women trying to get equality, of women striking out and going into the workplace. So seeing how Cinderella has changed within that sort of small area. So you can tailor Cinderella to tell any tale you want to?

You can, yes, absolutely. And Cinderella often reflects the times in which it was written. So what the prevailing ideologies were of the time, that's a Cinderella that we get. Well, we have a Cinderella with us. I'm going to bring Faye in on this. Tell us about your take on Cinderella, Faye. So Cinderella at the York Theatre World is very much a current story.

It does have the outlines of the original tale, but it's very much the Cinderella I'm playing she's so much a three-dimensional character she's strong she's still fun and loving but she's very independent and I think that's important to make her a relatable character so that people now can be like oh I can see myself in that situation or maybe young girls or any any young child can be like that's a older sister that I would like to look up to uh Cinderella she does actually have moments where she stands up to her stepsisters so in outline of the original story she does have her stepsisters that aren't very nice to her. But in our version, she does say,

it's okay that you might not like me, but it's not okay that you make fun of me. And I think that's a really important moment in the show. And that's what makes it so important and related. Because I was going to say to both of you. Cinderella isn't walked all over as well. She still has um a love story which everyone everyone enjoys seeing a romantic story but it's having a character that is more more than that which I think is really really important having moments

where you can look out to the audience in pantomime because we do a lot of um speaking out and saying, I'm not going to let nasty words get to me and I'm going to be strong and I'm going to be brave because I think what's important is that she deserves everything that's coming for her. And it's not just what she is, it's who she is. And that's good because I was going to say to you, tell me why I should like Cinderella, because as I'm heading into middle age, I'm becoming more of a cynical woman. I'm like, really? Do we want to go

to the ball? Is it all about the handsome prince still, Nicola? Or maybe I need to start seeing it in a different way. Yes, at the risk of sounding horrible, yes, I think you need to see it in a different way. The story has evolved. We have different retellings of cinderella we have obviously the york pantomime but it's a way the cinderella tale is a way of exploring ideologies it's a way of exploring

issues around women's quality and yes we have the traditional tales but so many of the retellings now are looking at the place of women in society, the way that we may need that transformative experience, but we're not necessarily reliant on the handsome prince to come along and rescue us. It could be the beautiful woman. It could be nobody. Or it could be just our internal way of transforming ourselves. And maybe through education or through all sorts of things. It's about us being able to transform ourselves into something a better version of ourselves perhaps absolutely and fair you know just talking to you now you instantly have flipped something on on its head from the cinderellas i watched from when i was

little is that you are a mixed race cinderella yes yeah i think again again, it has to be current. Cinderella can be anyone. She can have, you know, like in the original book, she's blonde hair, but then also she could be mixed race. She could be Asian, black. I think this is what it's about being who she is and not what she is or how she looks. And do you love playing her? I do really love playing her.

And I think it's a great step forward as well, having someone like me play her. It's very, very exciting. And again, going back to the ball, when you mentioned that, I think more than anything, it's not about how she looks. It's about this is a character that we all love as a person. As the girl, we're rooting for her. We want her to experience great things.

And I think it's important that anyone can play that because it doesn't matter how she looks. Yeah, absolutely. Faye, we're rooting for Cinderella and we're rooting for you. So break a leg and have a great season playing Cinderella up in York. And Nicola, thank you very much for joining us as well.

Lots of you have been getting in touch throughout the show with lots of thoughts on female leaders. And Jan said, I was a female boss and introduced a system of upward assessment. The key to the success of this was trust. My team trusted me enough to be truthful and constructed in their comments on my leadership. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories

I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.