Woman's Hour - Baroness Cumberlege, Euro 2020 men's football final, Equality in opera

Episode Date: July 12, 2021

Baroness Julia Cumberlege, who led a critical review into how the health service has treated female patients, says she is angry and frustrated that not enough progress has been made. A year ago her report looked into two drugs and a medical device which caused women or their babies harm. It made a list of recommendations to support victims and prevent future, avoidable damage. The four UK governments are still considering the recommendations. Baroness Cumberlege joins Emma.It’s been four weeks of competition that concluded last night when England lost to Italy in the final. Despite the ultimate outcome, the Euro 2020 men's football competition really seemed to capture the imagination of many, and was a much needed tonic after a year and a half of the Covid pandemic ruling our lives. Emma speaks to a panel of female football experts about what all this momentum could mean for the future of the women's game. Dr Martha Newson is a cognitive anthropologist at the Universities of Kent and Oxford, and has researched the behaviour of football fans around the world; Faye White was Captain of the England’s women’s team who got to the finals of the 2009 Euros; Kelly Simmons is director of the Women’s Professional game at the FA and Seema Jaswal has been one of ITV's main hosts of the Euros.The Engender Festival begins today and celebrates the work of women and gender minorities while seeking equality across all sectors of opera, both on and backstage. Creative Producer for The Royal Opera and founder of the Engender Festival Kate Wyatt talks about changing the gender imbalance in opera and music theatre. Emma is also joined by Artistic Director of Pegasus Opera Alison Buchanan who conceived Mami Wata, a concert which brings together a range of diverse composers. Last Friday the police officer Wayne Couzens pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to murdering Sarah Everard, the 33 year old marketing executive who went missing on her walk home in March of this year. He has yet to be sentenced. It seems there were clues that Wayne Couzens was a risk. There have been flashing allegations: one alleged to have happened just a few days before he abducted Sarah. The Daily Mail wrote that he was once reported for driving naked from the waist down, and colleagues nicknamed him "the rapist". Emma speaks to Emily Spurrell, Police and Crime Commissioner for Merseyside, who believes officers should be trained to spot signs of misogyny within their own ranks.

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. Looking back on when we first met, I cannot escape and I cannot forget. Southgate, you're the one, you still turn me on. Football's coming home again. Except it didn't. Remember last week, that wonderful moment when Atomic Kitten came on the programme right at the end and Natasha Hamilton did us an impromptu rendition of their song, which has become an anthem for this year's Euros? We had hope then. Even

12 hours ago, England fans still had hope, but then it was not to be, as England's bid to end their 55-year wait for a major trophy concluded in the familiar agony of defeat in a penalty shootout as Italy claimed the Euro 2020 crown at Wembley. As the quote goes, it's not the despair. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand. And that's what I want to talk about this morning.

Hope. Personally, I can't bear it. Genuinely. I'm not usually a football fan, but like so many, I joined in last night and hope infected me. Like millions of others, I was daring to hope on my sofa. I was standing up, I was sitting down, I was walking around. Had to be quite quiet, three-year-old upstairs. But to be honest, that's why I can't bear hope. Or rather, as it transpired in the end, false hope. You may argue with me on that. I like certainties, even though most of life isn't. Maybe that's just me. I like to try and cling to what is. That's why I don't garden after some early failed efforts. Why buy a real plant, which will die, or certainly it will in my care, when you can buy a false one that is guaranteed to stay green

all year round? Hope is an instrument of torture. It robs us of time, of energy. But where are you on the hope scale? I was talking about this with one of my colleagues this morning on the team. She swears by it. She needs it. But I'm OK, I think, largely, just going along with what I know, what I can be OK with. It doesn't have to be about football.

So many of you got in touch with us last week to say you're not at all bothered by the football. A lot of you are though. Hope, how are you this morning? If it was a difficult night for you or where are you on the hope scale? How does hope feature in your life on a day-to-day basis? 84844 on social media.

It's at BBC Women's Hour or email us your take on hope through our website. I can't wait to see where you come out on this. A message here from Cherry says, fans still have hope. There'll be another game, another tournament. Hope springs eternal. Does it?

I'll be talking to a cultural anthropologist about hope, as well as Faye White, captain of the England women's team, who got to the finals of the 2009 Euros, the last time an England football team reached a final. And also on today's programme, we'll be hearing about the women shaking up the world of opera. And I'll be joined by Baroness Cumberledge. A year on from her shocking report into women's health, is the government listening? But first, some news which without the loud clamour around sport, whether it was the football or the tennis, would have dominated the headlines. On Friday, the police officer Wayne

Cousins pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey to murdering Sarah Everard, the 33-year-old marketing executive who went missing on her walk home in March of this year. He has yet to be sentenced. We've been following the story and over the weekend more details about the police officer have emerged. There were clues that Wayne Cousins was a risk. There have been flashing allegations, one alleged to have happened just a few days before he abducted Sarah. The Daily Mail wrote over the weekend that he was once reported for driving naked from the waist down

and colleagues nicknamed him the rapist. Adding to the worry around this is that part of his job involved carrying a firearm. Emily Spurrell is a police and crime commissioner for Merseyside. Good morning. Good morning, Emma. You said that officers should be trained to spot signs of misogyny. What do you mean by that and how does that relate to this?

So I think it's important to note when we look at the case of Wayne Cousins is that there obviously were some warning signs around the kind of behavior that he was exhibiting and it feels like it maybe wasn't taken as seriously as it should have been and this isn't a unique issue to policing this is something across the across the whole society when you think about things and we talk about misogyny it's about contempt for women it's about um that kind of wanting the need to control and punish and quite often bring them into a sexual space where men have that power. So indigent exposure, groping, unwanted mobile photographs, you know, taking pictures of underneath their skirts.

All of these kind of behaviours demonstrate a kind of hostility towards women. And I think it is worrying that potentially there were some of these warning signs that didn't get picked up um in this case and so I suppose what what do you do in this instance what are you saying is it actually a different way of of particularly the police looking at themselves are you talking about wider because you are talking to us obviously as a police and crime commissioner yeah well I think as I say I think it is a wider cultural issue and I think the police are very much the typification of that I think we expect a high standard from the police. And, you know, when you go to the police, you often go at your most vulnerable. And so it's really, really important that women have that confidence that the police will take them seriously.

And this is why it's important that they get these kind of issues right. You know, there are some elements of this which aren't technically crimes. And there's a conversation on how do we get street harassment actually labeled as a crime so the police have the power but there are also some of these incidents where you know if somebody smacks you on the bum a lot of women won't report that because they think what's the point and actually that is assault you know i mean that is an actual sexual assault and what we need from the police is an acknowledgement that they will take these things seriously that they will you know address it they will they will put it through the courts and they will do everything within their power whether that's a member of the public or a police

officer, there has to be this feeling that the police will take all these reports really seriously. We had Sue Fish on, who was a former chief constable with Nottinghamshire Police, and it was a very memorable moment when I asked her if she would report a crime to the police, a crime against herself, as it were, and she said she would hesitate, you know, she would think a crime to the police, a crime against herself, as it were. And she said she would hesitate. You know, she would think twice. And we were, and I will stress this again, we had a lot of messages saying, you know, stop tarnishing all police officers in any way.

You know, we don't want to be able to, we want to tread a line, and this is what some of those messages said, of keeping a balance between people having faith in going to the authorities and doing exactly as you say and reporting and actually ruining faith in terms of the authorities that are meant to look after us. Yes, absolutely. So, you know, I have spoken to so many women who have that same fear, who maybe would think twice. And the challenge is I have met some absolutely fantastic police officers. There were some brilliant police officers, you know, particularly ones I've spoken to in Merseyside who get it and who really want

to get this right and they want to support women and they want to make sure they get that support and they're taken seriously and all of those kind of things but for a lot of women while a lot of these cases are coming to into the public realm they can't be confident that there might be another Wayne Cousins you know on the other end of the phone or sitting behind the desk. And so until the police can demonstrate that actually they are rooting out these officers who aren't, you know, who aren't maybe, you know, behaving in a way that you would expect from a police officer, until they can convince women, actually, they will get the right response. You know, I understand why some women might be hesitant to come forward.

What about now in terms of, you know, how, what you were saying there,, this is a difficult terrain, you know, what counts as misogyny, what counts as violence? And actually, I suppose what the heart of this, what's taken seriously? And I suppose that that's really around when you talk about potential warning signs, as I reported that the papers have been reporting on over the weekend. How do you know or how do we know or how should we know where to draw lines? I think it's about an element of being sensible. You know, I think we're starting to have this conversation now around how we do that. I think the work around misogyny as a hate crime is a really good piece of work that starts to identify what types of behaviour. So we have a specific number of offences, for example, like assault,

but actually you might go to an assault and acknowledge that there might be an element of hostility based on the fact that they are a woman, just in the same way that there might be a hostility against somebody who might be black or gay. And so I think we've done some of this work before around how do you articulate where the hostility is coming from? And so we have a suite of offences that we can already use. And I think what I want to see is how do we articulate where the hostility is coming from. And so we have a suite of offences that we can already use. And I think what I want to see is how do we articulate where misogyny is playing a role in that, so that we can actually better articulate the challenges that women are facing. Are you working on solutions at the moment, including an app? Or can you tell us more about that? Yeah, so I think one of the big challenges that we have is there is this data gap. So either because women don't feel confident to report or because it isn't currently a crime

in terms of things that you might see walking down the street. And so one thing we want to do is to figure out how do we fill that data gap? How do we actually capture that information? So police and other agencies can actually understand what the scale of the problem is. So the misogyny for hate crime work is a really good start

and lots of police forces are already doing that work, which is great. But again, it's about how do we capture information where maybe they don't want to go to the police so um you know un women and commonplace are doing some really good work with reclaim our streets in terms of um just having a simple app where people can women can just report where they've had an incident available to them we do need to look at the challenges around that because i think you want to get the balance right in terms of not then advertising areas to the public that maybe are are you know deemed to them be unsafe or you know you have to be careful on how you then might over police an area and the relationship that

communities will have with the police in that scenario but there is definitely a piece of work here in terms of how do we capture that data how do we actually understand the scale of the problem because we know there is so much underreporting around these issues and oftentimes they just don't have anywhere to go with it so that's something that I think we want to try and look at particularly on Merseyside. You started to talk about police winning back trust if they have lost it especially with women there will be some saying that there are always people who are the outliers who are not the norm you shouldn't change everything because of them. What would you say to them in light of this guilty plea by Wayne Cousins?

I think it's too important an issue to try and talk about in those terms. I think, you know, as I say, there are so many brilliant police officers I've met who really get this. But while there is even one, Bad Apple, who would, you know, have a detrimental impact on a victim, we have to be rooted out. We have to have a zero tolerance policy because obviously you're a police and crime commissioner. Sorry to cut across you, but there's an issue now around faith in the structures that manage the police, the top brass, as it were. I mean, for instance, in the Met, do you have faith in Cressida Dick, a top woman? I think the challenge we have is it's not a simple case of just saying, well, let's get rid of Cressida Dick

and have somebody else. There is a cultural problem here. You know, it is something that is reflected in wider society as well as in policing, but rightly so. Police are being held to a higher standard. If a woman comes to a police officer and reports a crime and is not believed or is dismissed or is not treated with respect, they won't go back for the more serious crimes like domestic abuse

and there is this kind of one chance rule sometimes. So I think it's not about targeting individual police officers. It's about culture. It's about trust. I understand that but it's about culture and it's about whether you feel that the cultures are correct within the police to, as you say say root out one bad apple or others well i think this is what we need to look at and it's certainly something i'll be

looking at in terms of how do we how do we challenge some of that so there's a number of investigations that are going on now around gross misconduct so the independent office for police conduct are taking this really seriously so i've already had conversations with them about how we have to make sure that police forces are rooting this kind of behaviour out, because that is probably the way that we're going to actually reassure the public that these things will be taken seriously. And I think you're very wise to point to that. But I think there's also questions about that office in itself. The Independent Office of Police Conduct has also come under scrutiny. Emily Sparrow, much more we could go into. Perhaps we'll come back to you again. And also, I'm keen to talk to those people involved in those investigations and hope to bring them on to Women's Hour soon.

Emily Spurrall, a police and crime commissioner for Merseyside. Thank you for your time. Now, I have to say, I've struck gold here on hope. A lot of you are incredibly hopeful all of the time and for very, very brilliant reasons and for very sobering reasons as well. I'm going to go through a couple of these messages because I've been asking for your attitudes on it after that thing that happened last night with that team, that football team. Lynn says, Hi, Emma.

I've long since given up hoping for anything except one thing. I hope that my little rescue cat, Molly, is happy and healthy living with me. Hope to me is a wasted endeavour. Okay, Lynn, let's see why. I've hoped for many things, mostly that men will be kind to me and as I am to them,

but without success. I continue to be kind to anyone and everyone because that's my nature, but I no longer hope that it will be reciprocated because it's such a rarity. I guess it's a coping mechanism. If I don't hope for anything, I can't be disappointed.

Lynn, I feel there's some stories there that we could get into. John says, hope has contributed to more confusion and misery that can be assessed throughout the history of mankind. Hope removes you from what is actuality, whatever form it takes. You forfeit actual life for expectation, which is such a profound waste of life. When you hope for anything, you deny who you are now, this instant. That, alas, is a huge mistake, yet one which seemingly John, thank you for that. Sarah says, I'm constantly disappointed because I am such an unrealistic optimist.

I tell myself not to hope for ridiculous achievements, but a little voice says it could happen. And I think that was the voice last night, which was in a lot of people's minds. If you were watching England lose to Italy in the UA for Euro men's football final, And I think that was the voice last night, which was in a lot of people's minds. If you were watching England lose to Italy in the UEFA Euro men's football final, despite the hugely disappointing outcome, perhaps what we can agree on is that the Euros really seem to capture the nation's imagination, even non-football fans and the games providing a much needed tonic after a year and a half where the Covid pandemic has ruled our lives.

Those messages still coming in about where you are on the hope scale. Someone to help us out a bit, Dr. Martha Newsome, a cognitive anthropologist at the Universities of Kent and Oxford who has researched the behaviour of football fans around the world. And Faye White is on the line, captain of the England women's team who got to the finals of the 2009 Euros, which we should say again, the last time an England football team reached a final. Martha, if I may start with you, hope, where are you about that? How hopeful were you last night, first of all? I was really hopeful. My daughter was watching with me. She's six and I knew she was having a

late bedtime and I didn't really want to deal with the fallout. So I was really hopeful. But there's a difference. Unlike denial, hope is grounded in reality. So it's based on the evidence. We've had evidence of England doing really well. We held on right to the last moment. So it's evidence-based. It's not just a shot in the dark.

And it's really a positive state for troubled times. Hope comes into its own when there's darkness around. Martin Luther King put it so beautifully, only when it's darkness around martin luther king put it so beautifully only when it's dark enough can you see the stars so hope's really a state for making the most of of darkness um and it makes you do things it's active not passive and that's that's what makes hope very powerful it's a way of navigating obstacles because you're focusing on the reality but people and this is what i interesting, of course I have some hopes in my life. I think some people are quite concerned now.

But I suppose what I was trying to say is, do people lose trust? I mean, that's what's so amazing about football or a game like that. You come back to it again and again and you hope for something else. But in other circumstances, I was just going to say in other circumstances,

if your trust was ruined like that or breached like that, you may feel I'm not going back to that. Yeah, so going down with the ship is something we've been interested in for years. And football fans are such a great population to try and understand this very human condition about loyalty and sticking through thick and thin. So it's the most loyal fans, the ones who actually, the ones who've been through the worst, most bitter defeats, the most embarrassing, humiliating, dysphoric, opposite to euphoric, the dysphoric occasions

are those that bind us together ever more strongly. So we've actually found that these kinds of defeats can hold fans together much more. You get people who cut off all that failure and move on, but those ones who essentialise and bring into themselves that experience and who they've shared it with, they sort of become part of their identity and they stick through it through thick and thin

and they won't give up from this kind of experience. Faye White, is that music to your ears as someone who had hope on your shoulders? Yeah, definitely. I think you have to have hope. I was just trying to think about how I view it, but it gives you something more to dream of, something to aim for, goals to set yourself challenges from an athlete player point of view. If you didn't have that, then why would you put in the hard work? Why would you make make the sacrifices why would you bounce back from the setbacks um you know so so speaking of bouncing back how are you feeling this morning yeah a bit deflated it feels like i've you know almost played a bit of the game

those billions of 2009 come back a bit because you're so close you you know, not many players get to play in a final and to be that close. So, yeah, obviously, but equally, again, if you're going to progress and move on, you have to straight away think of the positives that come out of any situation. How does it feel when it's not worked? I mean, that was where you got to and then you couldn't get any further last night, you know, watching the team, watching the men walk across and look so crestfallen I'm so struck when they were given their their silver medals uh as it were the runner-up they all kind of most of them took them off straight away I mean it was so visceral yeah I think in that moment because you are focused fully on achieving on, or getting that satisfaction from winning. So in that moment,

yes, that feeling of loss is still so raw. So yes, they maybe take them off because it feels like they're just not out of that moment at that point. But I think once they reflect and after the game, when you set back, you see it from very different eyes. And like I say, not many people will have ever that medal in their cabinet ever again. And some of the best players before them have never had that experience. So, yes, it's not what they wanted, but it's a hard moment in that moment to feel satisfied with that silver medal, I know. Martha, coming back to you, I know that you have measured stress hormones from fans.

Was this through saliva how have you done this yes that was a study the 2014 world cup in Brazil so I went over there pregnant with my first child and we were we were waiting for a loss you know it was really unpopular we have research study for the fans but we got that um catastrophic loss for Brazil 7-1 in the semi-finals I think it was so we had to collect saliva samples so we could measure this interesting stress hormone called cortisol. And before the game, everyone was up for it. After the game, we had people kicking chairs, we had people sobbing. It's such a human experience in that, you know, people hugging each other.

We release endorphins, it's morphine-like high when we hug each other lots of consoling and i'm following them around in my limited portuguese saying please can i collect your saliva again and does booze does alcohol affect the results or not yeah so they weren't allowed to drink alcohol for my study either we had beers after sort of waiting wow um yeah what what did you find I mean how high are the stress levels yeah they they they rocketed um mid-game um there's so many factors in football I think that's something that brings people back again and again it can change so very quickly so that was quite a euphoric game for most of it and it was really the end when it when it changed but we found that the most bonded fans those who fuse through thick and thin to the team to each other they experienced the biggest stress and response and that's the same for women as men

yeah and you believe this tournament has been bonding for men and women well I think so I mean we've seen so many people who don't usually watch football have been involved so it's been a community endeavor beyond just football so I I'm interested to see if it's an opportunity for communities to bond together women getting involved in football either via fans because so many children have been or in their own right because then the experience has for some people been very very meaningful coming together and and it'll be interesting to see how that sticks, particularly with the penalties.

You know, it was such an emotional experience to watch. I know, I know. I was there. I wasn't there, but you know what I mean. I felt I was there. Let me just bring you back into this, Faye, because in terms of that longer-term benefit, do you think this is going to be good for the women's game

and that's keep building in the way it has been? Yeah, well, next summer we have the women's game and that's keep keep building in the way it has been yeah well next summer we have the the women's euros in england being hosted so it's a almost a perfect chance to to really profile the game again and and get more people that have had this feeling of togetherness of community and equally the women that have just as good a chance to get into the final got They got to the semifinals last time out. So, yeah, if anything, probably just as good, if not better, chance of getting to a final and going on and winning it. Well, on that point, I'm now joined by Kelly Simmons, director of the women's professional game at the FA,

who was at the final last night, I'm told. And speaking of female representation off the pitch as well, Seema Jaswal, one of ITV's main hosts of the Euros. Kelly, I'll come to you first. How was it last night? Hence, stressful. I'm very proud of Gareth and the players and what they've achieved. And they're a young, talented side. And I think there's so much to be proud of.

And as Faye said, now focus moves to the European Women's Championships next summer. What an opportunity to show what the England women's team can do and promote the women's game in this country. Kelly, where are you on the hope scales? Are you a generally, I love hope, I'm all in with the hope, I'm there with it on that scale? Or are you someone who was going in a bit more pessimistic, realistic, pragmatic?

Lifelong football fan, you've got to have hope. So, yeah, I'm a positive person. And even today, even though obviously we're disappointed, I can't not think about the positives of what's come out from the championship and the values that the England team have promoted, how they've united the nation, how everybody's got behind them. What a young, talented, brave bunch of young men they are.

And, yeah, I'm just really looking forward to, well, first of all, GB in the Olympics, football, and then obviously home Euros. So lots of football to come and always keep the hope. We've got a message from Katie who says, I like Homer Simpson's quote, hope, hope. Hope is just disappointment that hasn't happened yet. Seema, let me bring you into this.

Welcome to Women's Hour. How are you feeling today? Oh, do you know what? I'm feeling very deflated. I mean, I literally, so I've covered the tournament from start to finish and I've been really privileged to have followed England throughout the whole course of the tournament.

And I mean, I will say they have made us so incredibly proud. But when you're there in the stadium, as Kelly's just mentioned, you know, everyone was living and breathing every single moment but in the stadium it was so tense and when we scored so early I mean in the second minute it just felt too good to be true it really did but to hold on for that long was always going to be a tough ask it'd be a great side but yeah when it went to penalties it's just the one thing I cannot watch and to be there it was

horrible I just didn't want to be there to be honest I really did you watch did you watch each of them I did I did well so we were I was actually in a commentary position watching the game because that's where we can have screens to watch replays so it helps us with our analysis post-match but we had to sort of make that call as to whether when to sort of walk down pitch side and so I was we had to walk down pitch side straight after um extra time and we got there and I was like literally behind the goal literally where Pickford where where the goal was and I saw everything everything and it was just too close for me do you I mean because you're working as well where are you with hope you've got to you got to keep some kind of even keel do you know what I know they say it's the hope that kills you and I know it did for us

yesterday but I'm I'm all about hope it's hope that gets us through I think as sports fans football fans but sports fans in general we we live for these moments we we love sport because it's real life unscripted drama and with that there's hope there's also the lows because it's real life, unscripted drama. And with that, there's hope. There's also the lows, but it's the highs and it's the hope that gets you through it. A message here. Wendy says there's a big difference between hope and optimism. Optimism can deny or avoid facing reality, i.e. that England might lose. Hope is being willing to believe even when there's no certainty.

It involves all still having faith faith in the face of doubt we can choose to hold on to hope and learn to manage disappointment does it make us better or feel better to have a hopeful outlook or have a despairing one wise words from wendy how important was it at sema for for you and do you think women as a whole for you know having more women as part of the presenting team on the men's game on ITV. I know that we had Emma Hayes on at the end of last week, I was talking to her, and her punditry has been, you know, also a big part of this. It's hugely important. And yeah, Emma has been absolutely brilliant. And I'm sure you've all seen the positive response she's had from a lot of the public, because she is just fabulous. And

I think that, for me, it's been really really lovely because I've had so many messages on social media from young women wanting to get into sports saying you know we've seen you and we really feel we believe that we can do it and also a lot of parents saying their daughters their younger daughters have been watching and they've been inspired by Nadia Nadim who was with us and Enia Luko and Emma Hayes and it was just so lovely to hear these wonderful messages and to read them. I think it's hugely important. I think the visibility is important for the next generation coming through, for young women to feel that they can be part of sport in whichever way they want to be,

whether it's on the pitch or off the pitch. And yeah, football's always been pretty male dominated, but I think I've entered the industry at a time where I've actually seen a lot of change and we've seen it during the Euros as well. So yeah, lots of positives to take from this and long may it continue. But at the same time, we do need to, I suppose,

address what we've been hearing in the news bulletins. The Prime Minister's condemned the racist tweets that have been towards some of the players, namely the three players who missed their penalties last night, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka. What do you make of, what do you want to say about that, Seema? Because I know you were warned going into this that you could also have trolling and abuse.

Yeah, I was. And I mean, I think the abuse that these players have received is disgusting. It's just totally unacceptable. And I can't believe that we're in 2021 and we're talking about this I mean it's just disgusting and you know this is exactly why the players wanted to take the knee before the matches because they are they're wanting to show that you know what we will fight racism together but the fact is is this football team have brought us together brought

the nation together when we've most needed it. And you still get idiots messaging and sending horrible messages, racist abuse online. And it's just, it's unacceptable. I think social media companies need to do a lot more. I do think that they need to show accountability. I was saying it earlier that, you know, we, whenever we see a video that's from a different country come up on our feeds you know it's totally you know you can't click on it you can't press play because it's it's not available for you where you are in your territory why can they not do that with racist comments why can't they do more and obviously the wider issue is you know that's not going to stop it but that's going to stop those those particular trolls but it's the education isn't it it just shows that we we still need to educate society and

it's really really important i mean i like that we can talk about racism so freely and we talk about change needing to happen but we're not really seeing that change we're not seeing it and also it's very striking i know on some of the abuse that had been screenshot by the newspapers some of the first bits of abuse I saw were from women. There's a lot been made of course of some of the fans not behaving as they should have done last night what they've done, injuring lots of police officers

and clashes outside. That largely seemed to be men. I'll be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong on that but from the footage and from what I could see. But it's very striking that abuse online is done by both women and men, which is also something that I know has been noted. And when we're discussing this,

we often do talk about the abuse of women, but we're talking about the abuse of three guys with loads of people piling in. On that point, Kelly, when you're looking across the women's game, are you more hopeful of the way fans behave? I think there is a different culture around fans in the women's game, but that doesn't mean that we don't have to be mindful,

that we've got to all keep working together. I think what we saw last night was absolutely appalling. Pleased to see that the Met Police are investigating. I hope they get the toughest punishments. And as it's been said already, social media companies need to do much much more well but i think you know with the women's game um you know it's a very much sort of a family atmosphere you get a lot of uh young people at the games also get a lot of adult football fans who are increasingly coming over um but um yeah i mean hopefully some of the stuff

that we've seen you know we won't be seeing at all at the European Women's Championships. Which we're talking about, something to look forward to. That's on to the next thing. That's what you've got to do as a fan, right? You've got to keep going to the next thing. It's always another game. That's the great thing about football. Always another tournament, another game.

Well, thank you very much to all of you for joining us. That was Kelly Simmons, Director of the Women's Professional Game at the FA. Seema Jaswal, one of IT Women's Professional Game at the FA. Seema Jaswal, one of ITV's main hosts of the Euros. And then we were hearing about hope

from the cognitive anthropologist Dr. Martha Newson and Faye White, Captain of the Indian Women's Team who got to the finals of the 2009 Euros the last time an England football team

reached a final. Hope, Judy-Ann says, is like love. Better to have loved and lost than never to have been loved at all. It is the same with hope. If you live without it, you are denying yourself

the possibility of something good. And some very important messages coming in around the fact that people who are living with conditions have to have it. One here saying from Christine, hope is very important to me living with a long-term condition, Parkinson's.

I hope to keep as well as I can and I hope that a cure will be found. Without hope, my future would seem very gloomy. I'm sure it would, Christine, and I'm sure that speaks to lots of people. And Stuart on a similar line says, as an avid male listening to your show, I'd like to say I think hope is precious

and we should cling on to it. I have three monthly scans for an incurable brain cancer. Without hope, my wife and I would be nervous wrecks. I know this is especially true for my wife, who dreads the day when the tumour will return. We hold on to the hope that I will be one of the few percent of brain tumour patients who will defy the odds and make it into old age.

I very much hope that too, Stuart. I can definitely say that. And thank you for that message. Well, speaking of health, last month in a special programme, we dedicated a whole episode to women's health as part of the government's final call for evidence for its women's health strategy. So many of you got in touch, a lot of you fellow unwell women like myself, and it made it a very powerful and moving hour. And also a lot of you very angry indeed, and rightly so with some of the stories you were sharing with us.

If you missed it, do catch up on BBC Sounds. But that programme began with an interview with the Health Minister, Nadine Dorries, who stressed and re-stressed her commitment to women's health, her talking about women needing to stand up to doctors more and talked about the fact that the NHS was unknowingly sexist at times in the way that it handles women's conditions. Well, someone testing the government's commitment to women's health is Baroness Julia Cumberledge,

who led a critical review into how the health service has treated female patients. She and her team spent two years speaking to more than 700 women and their families who experienced complications linked to three treatments. A year ago, she published her report. She was looking at primidos, sodium valproate, a common epilepsy treatment that left children with disabilities, and at pelvic mesh implants used to treat injuries resulting from childbirth that's caused agony for thousands of women. But what has happened 12 months on? Baroness Cumberledge is on the line now. Good morning.

Good morning. Last week, a parliamentary debate about your recommendations took place. Are you confident the government is listening? Well, I think it's listening, but I'm not sure it's acting. And what we are very anxious to do is to ensure that the nine recommendations that we made are implemented, because that will bring a great deal more safety. That will ensure that the women who have been so injured will get some redress for how they are suffering now. And also, we are very anxious that the people who hold our lives in their hands

should actually be more accountable. And we've got a recommendation on that. And yet you just mentioned the word redress in terms of compensation. You recommended there should be a redress agency. Has that been rejected? It has so far, but hope springs eternal, as you were talking about. And I am determined that with the enormous support that we've got, not only from the parliamentarians who have been exceptional, but from the women themselves. And you talked about 700 plus that we met. But we've had thousands more contacts with women through emails, through letters, through phone calls. But why has it been rejected then? I mean, it is one thing to have hope.

Are you saying you can overturn what the minister said? How can that happen? We will work on it because the support that we've had, particularly from the parliamentarians, has been enormous, as well as from the patient groups. And it makes sense. If you have a redress agency, then it means when there are problems that arise, when redress is required, you only have to go to one source. But I know you think this, as it was in your report. And we've been speaking to the campaigners around this in preparation for talking to you today. But it's been rejected. Why?

Well, for the moment, we are fighting on. When you've heard the stories that I've heard, you keep fighting because redress is essential. And the agency would simplify matters. So unlike breast implants implants hip replacements the blood blood issues you always have to start again am I saying that's wrong but I should have an agency that deals with all of us and and so it's very important to have explained that but what is your reading as to why it was rejected I I suppose that's what you've worked with parliamentarians for years. You now who have suffered, who wouldn't have to go through an agency.

They should get the redress that they need to make their lives more bearable. A question from one of the Primidos campaigners, Marie Lyon. She said, does the Baroness feel it was an acceptable and adequate response from Nadine Dorries, the health minister, considering the serious harms which have occurred? She went on to say, you said in your report that Primadot should have been removed from the market in 1967. And she says the minister refused to acknowledge this. What are your comments on how Nadine Dorries addressed that? Well, I think you have to read the whole debate. And certainly we had Theresa May, our former Prime Minister, who spoke very movingly and very correctly during the debate,

and Jeremy Hunt, who is the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for health. And they were both pressing. They were both saying... They have no power. We need all these recommendations implemented. The first one has been the apology. Very grateful for the apology from the Secretary of State and the ministers. But apology is not enough. It needs action. And it is the action that we're pressing for. Is Nadine Dorries good at her job? I am not going to comment on individual ministers.

But she is the health minister. They have a responsibility and they try and fulfil it as best they can. But they rely on the Department of Health as well. And the department should support them. And we are working also with the department to ensure that our recommendations are implemented. I'm asking you that because you're a Conservative peer, and people need to have faith. And the apology, while gratefully received, as you've just said, isn't enough. It doesn't go far enough. And while it's nice that Jeremy Hunt, the former Health Secretary, and Theresa May, the former prime minister, have made the right

noises, huge support, the person in the chair or one of the key people in the chair has been called out by the campaigners that you have spoken to who have changed you. You say you'll take their stories to the grave. They're not happy with how the minister responded last week. Well, I obviously are going to continue my talks with Nadine because it is important that she gets the full force of what has happened. And the patient safety commissioner, which was our second recommendation, the government have agreed to that. And I am delighted. But they've known about it for a year. And we need to work further on it because that person will look to see what is happening across

the piece. This does not look right. We want to investigate this. We want to stop what's happening. And indeed, as a review team, we introduced the pause for surgical mesh. And that still has not been lifted. So many things. I want to come to mesh in particular in just a moment, because we've got a lot of people who've got in touch with us as well about that. But has a job advert even gone out for the patient safety commissioner? We haven't had the advertisement out yet. There's some consultation.

And I just do want to say to the department, just look at what's happening in Scotland. They are ahead of the game. They have accepted all our recommendations. They are much further down the road of appointing a patient safety commissioner. It's time in England we not only caught up, but in fact we did better.

Are you angry about this? There seems to be, apart from the apology, no action on the rest of your report 12 months on. Well, there is action with the patient safety commissioner and there's action because in the House of Lords we managed to get this position enshrined in law through the Medicines and Medical Devices Act. So that is there. But everything seems to take so long. It's glacial. They should be at speed to introduce these recommendations because people are suffering and they will in the future unless these recommendations are implemented.

Do you have faith in Nadine Dorries to do this as the health minister? I'm sure she would do her very best. She needs to negotiate perhaps a bit more successfully with the Department of Health to ensure that these recommendations are introduced. And is it going to be less glacial, do you think, under Sajid Javid, now the Health Secretary, now Matt Hancock's not there? Well, I don't know. He hasn't been there very long at the moment. But clearly he's somebody who has worked in the Treasury. He knows how to pull the levers. And I, of course, have immediately congratulated him on his appointment. And I'm still waiting for a reply.

You've not heard back from him yet? Sorry? You've not heard back from him yet? Not yet, no. A year on from your report, the special censors to be helping, running and helping women who have meshes up and running. When we covered this last in June, seven specialist mesh removal centres had opened across England. There's also one in Scotland. We got in touch with the Sling the Mesh, the campaign group fighting for women affected by this.

And they say this, the mesh centres are in name only. There've been no formal training. It's a postcode lottery as to the type of care that women receive. Some are being told they're getting full removals when it's only partial and others are having to face the trauma of going back to their implanting surgeon who has gaslighted them for years, denying mesh is an issue. And now they're meant to trust that that surgeon takes their mesh out. It is awful. I think it is awful.

I think it is. I'm sure we can do better, but it's not for me. I produced a report. I am not executive. No. The executive is the Department of Health, and in this case, it's certainly NHS England who are in charge of that. And we can only recommend we do all we possibly can to ensure that those recommendations are implemented because it is about safety in the future, as well as all the suffering and the anguish and the horror

that is going on now as a result of what has been done to women through primadol sodium valproate and surgical mesh. How concerned are you though about, for instance, sodium valproate, that it's still available? I mean, Jeremy Hunt's expressed concern still about the way women are told about the risks associated with it. I am very concerned. And one of the things that struck us was that were women really conscious, those who were suffering from epilepsy, of the possible damage that could be done through sodium valproate? And so we have negotiated very hard with NHS England to get this letter out for all women who are taking sodium palprate so that they are really aware of the possible dangers. I suppose the issue is, and I do recognise this is not for you to do,

but you're trying to put pressure on to make the changes or make the recommendations that you have implemented. With the redress one being knocked back, the only one that's actually happened is the apology. And we're now 12 months on and very aware there's been a pandemic in the interim. And there's a message I've just received here with people saying they're very frustrated and all of that. But there's one from Samantha who says, sodium valproate did immeasurable damage to my 18 year old daughter. She has the mental capacity of a three year old.

I do hope that justice will be done. We'll talk about hope again. But I don't trust the government to do the right thing. What do you say to her that she doesn't trust your party, the Conservative Party, the party of government to do the right thing? It's not going to speak volumes and help that person, help that individual, Samantha, to trust the government when they've knocked back one of your recommendations? Well, hope springs eternal. But also, we do have to have a huge amount of work put in. And in order to do that, we set up an all-party parliamentary group called First Do No Harm, which is the title of our report, of course. And we are working with others to ensure that more and more pressure is put on the government to do things, especially the department. Now, I just have to say that you can do so much. But, you know, this report was established by parliamentarians. It was after a lot of pressure from women.

It was Theresa May who set it up and Jeremy Hunt who asked me to chair the review. So we we simply have to work to with parliamentarians and others in order to achieve our recommendation. I know, but after a huge amount of pressure from women who had been suffering for years, lonely, confused, being told by their doctors everything was OK. Yes, parliamentarians said yes, but there was an enormous amount of pressure from women. Gratitude for people taking it on and commissioning the review only goes so far. Has anyone actually received any compensation for any of these things? Well, compensation, you have to go to the courts. And that's why we talk about redress, because going to court brings awful problems in terms of it's a very strange system that you have to go to court,

employ lawyers. And we know the enormous amount of fees that are paid to lawyers in comparison to the amount that's given to those who have bought the case, who are the sufferers. So we're not talking about compensation. We're talking about redress. Has anyone received redress? No, not redress, but they have received compensation because they have chosen to go to court and to fight for it. And also some of the trusts whose employees have caused this problem, the surgeons and others, they have also said to the women, very few of them.

Yes, we recognise the harm that's been done to you. And they have produced some financial settlements. Yeah, well, I mean, we were only talking about this last year, but last week, excuse me, with the report into maternity services in England. I mean, that department's paying out £2.3 billion a year in terms of compensation. Just finally, you are working within the system that exists, as you have described.

How long are you going to give this government to act? What's your kind of time's up moment? No, I shall keep going. And the women who I've met, I've told them, and they know, I've said that I will go on. I will go on and on, because women must not be ignored, dismissed, told it's all in their mind, and they should deserve a proper response to our report and the action that's necessary to implement it. So I will continue as long as I possibly can. And I'm sure they'll be very grateful to hear that. But do you think in a year's time, will we have any more of these recommendations? I mean, what's your timeframe in your mind with what you know of parliamentarians and how the machine works we will certainly have a patient

safety commissioner in post and that is essential in order to prevent the harm in the future and that is important that will be in post and we will have gone somewhere down to implementing the other recommendations because the pressure is mounting. It's very great. And we want to see these recommendations. Only nine, eight left to be implemented. Baroness Julia Cumberledge, thank you very much for your time this morning and for sharing your experiences and those on behalf of the women you spoke to. The Health Minister Nadine Dorries gave us this statement. Baroness Cumberledge's report and recommendations are incredibly important for the women, children and their families who have gone unheard for too long. We're already working to implement five of the report's nine recommendations and we're carefully considering the remainder of the recommendations before setting out our full response to ensure appropriate lessons are learned.

The government plans to respond in full this year. A message just here from Sarah who says, Hope, I want to share what it means to me. I had three miscarriages before having my little boy. After lots of tests, there was no explanation for the losses. All we had was hope that one day we would have a baby. The poem Hope is the Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson became very important to me.

Thought it might be comfort for some and for some other listeners too. Whatever happens, hope is there, but you have to nurture it and take care of it. Sarah, thank you so much for that message and what a lovely thought and recommendation for people to go and read. I know the words that you're talking about. Now, to go on to some culture and stick with that then, for the most misogynist art form, what would you go for? That's certainly a question posed by the critics over the years about opera,

or as Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian's chief culture writer, puts it, opera is extravagantly cruel to its female characters. Isn't it time the divas were free to sing their own tune? Seeking to redress the gender imbalance on and off stage, the Royal Opera House Engender Festival starts today. I'm joined by Kate Wyatt, creative director for the Royal Opera House and founder of the festival, and Alison Buchanan, artistic director of Pegasus Opera,

who conceived Mamawatta, a concert which brings together a range of diverse composers and will close the festival. A warm welcome to you both. Kate, tell us about this festival. What are you trying to do with it? So the Engender Festival is part of our Engender Initiative, which is the Royal Opera's initiative to change gender imbalance

in opera and music theatre and drive towards gender equity in all areas of opera in the opera field so on stage off stage backstage the festival which culminates the year every season is a chance to celebrate the work of women and gender minorities in opera and takes place and starts today we We kick off today. Does opera have a problem? It needs change. We've been talking about change a lot today, but yeah, there's definitely change needed.

So I think, you know, we're working towards representing lived experiences of women in opera. So it's not just about, you know, the historical canon, which is largely dominated by white men portraying women in a. So it's not just about, you know, the historical canon, which is largely dominated by white men portraying women in a very particular way. We need to be looking at ways of changing how women are presented on stage, how they're perceived on stage, how we have a less binary conversation about gender. We need to look at presenting old works in different ways, but also really changing the canon so that we've got new works coming through.

Alison, how does that sound to you? It sounds like exactly what needs to happen. We need to change and we need to diversify in opera. And I think that historically opera has been very white, very male, very a certain demographic. And so, you know, an opera is telling stories and stories are for everybody. So it needs to be for everybody. And also it needs to represent that, you know, the opera houses need to represent the people that are in the community.

How did you get into it? Well, by delinquency, actually. I was 11 in a school in Bedford and liked to cause trouble. And I had heard Krista Ludwig singing the Brahms Alto Rhapsody in my father's very West Indian record collection and must have sparked some interest because at the age of 11 I went to a music class and it was very boring so I started pretending I was the woman I heard and the rest is history as they say. Do you know I think I think we need to we need to have a listen. We need to have some music here. And before we do, what inspired Mami Wata? Well, when when Kate asked me to put together a programme, I noticed that a lot of the of all women composers,

I noticed that there was an underlying theme of water and it's women and it's strong women and Mami Wata is uh sort of from the African culture the mother ocean mother water and one of the pieces in the in the opera in the in the show is Oyamanja who is another Yoruban goddess of water doing incantations to protect her her son and so I thought Mami Wata, that concept of strong, protective woman and water, which also we talk a lot of, a lot of the artists are that we're using from the diaspora. So that means passage water. And so it all kind of tied in very well, I think. Well, thank you for explaining that because here is you singing a song from Mami Wata. Eat in the kitchen when company comes But I laugh and eat well and grow strong Tomorrow I'll sit at the table when company comes

Nobody'll dare say to me Eat in the kitchen then Three Dream Portraits, composed by Margaret Bonds and performed by Alison Buchanan, who's with us on the line, Terence Wilson and the Ritz Chamber Players. Alison, do you think it's about getting more people into opera as people who consume it, or how do you

actually get them into work within it? Well, I think one of the biggest issues is for people is seeing people who look like themselves on the stage as creatives because that inspires you to think well i can do that i would like to do that and so the more that you sort of it becomes norm to see people that look like yourselves then the more it will diversify. And talking of hope, that song that you just heard is about a... Beautiful, by the way, I should have said. Oh, thank you.

Servant who is hopeful that people will see him as beautiful as he thinks he is, but he's not allowed to, you know, he doesn't get that opportunity. And that's his hope. Alison, you've weaved our whole programme together there beautifully. It's like you work in the creative world somehow. Lovely to talk to you. Alison Buchanan there, Artistic Director of Pegasus Opera, who conceived Mummy Water, which you've just heard a bit from.

Kate, final word to you about this festival. What are you hoping will be the upshot, really? Long term, I hope that there's much more parity in the opera world but in the short term this week we've got lots going on it's a real smorgasbord we've got operas in progress which really show the audience a glimpse of how you make opera which is a long process and they're all by female-led teams. We've got two brilliant panellists having insight conversations about gatekeeping and how we move the barriers and

of course we round up with Mami Wata at the end of the week. Lovely stuff. Well thanks for giving us a taste. Good luck with that. The Engender Festival runs from today until the 17th of July at the Royal Opera House and of course online and Mami Wata closes the festival on Friday and Saturday

at the Limbury Theatre if you want to find out more. Just coming back to hope as we so beautifully did. Just listening earlier this message came in. Hi Emma so true adversity brings people closer together if you're thinking about the football still I've always been a hope for the best and prepare for the worst kind of person

it's seen me through some challenging times I know but it's also so frustrating. Thank you so much for your comments today and your company. We'll be back tomorrow 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.

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.