Woman's Hour - Baroness Ruth Davidson; The science of knitting; Spiking by injection

Episode Date: October 20, 2021

Former Scottish Conservative leader – the recently ennobled Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links - will be giving her maiden speech in the House of Lords on Friday as part of a debate on assisted dying. She used to be against amending the law on assisted dying but had a change of heart last year. She explains why to Emma.The Home Secretary Priti Patel has requested an urgent update from the police following a spate of recent cases where women's drinks have been spiked. With multiple reports also emerging of women being spiked by injection in clubs in Glasgow and Nottingham, journalist and author Lucy Ward last night shared texts from her student daughter on Twitter- Lucy speaks to Emma.Are you a keen knitter? Have you ever considered that patterns for knitting your jumpers, hats or gloves could be seen as having parallels to computer coding? Do we undervalue the scientific aspects of some female-dominated skills? Emma speaks to Shetland knitter and pattern writer Hazel Tindall - aka World's Fastest Knitter - and to Sue Montgomery, who went viral in 2019 for knitting data into a shawl.Women Talk Back, a feminist society at Bristol University is filing a legal case today against Bristol Students' Union, after they say they were sanctioned by the union for running women-only meetings. This issue came to a head last March when they refused admission at one of their events to a trans woman. Raquel Rosario Sanchez is the President of the group and joins Emma.A company that speed-grows coral in the Bahamas is among the winners of the inaugural Earthshot Prize – the new annual awards created by the Duke of Cambridge to reward people trying to save the planet. There were five winners announced at the star-studded ceremony in London on Sunday, each receiving £1m. Alannah Vellacott is Coral Vita's Coral Restoration Specialist and takes Emma through the process and why it's so important.

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

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to today's programme and a packed one it is. When is it not? I want to ask you something you may find difficult to admit. I want to ask you about changing your mind. What is the biggest thing you have changed your mind about? Perhaps you were absolutely resolute and then something happened or you met someone or perhaps it was getting a bit older and you suddenly saw something in a different light.

I was speaking to one of my producers before coming on air this morning. She says simply her family don't change their mind. Maybe you're in that camp. But one of my first guests today, the former leader of the Scottish Conservatives, now Baroness Ruth Davidson, has changed her mind over something significant, assisted dying. She now supports a change in the law, having previously been against it. We'll go into those details shortly. Yours may be far less serious, and I still want to hear about it, or it may be incredibly consequential. Another question though with that, if I can, have you admitted it? Maybe you had a big row about it. Maybe you had a big

discussion with somebody. Have you actually told the other people in your life who have known you for that view, perhaps, that you have come to a different one. Changing your mind, hard to do, sometimes even harder to admit. Tell me what you've changed your mind over. 84844 is the number you need to text me here at Woman's Hour. Texts of course will be charged at your standard message rate. You can get in touch with me on social media, it's at BBC Woman's Hour or email me through our website. Also on today's programme, the feminist taking Bristol Students' Union and Bristol University to court, and a scientist who's got up very early indeed to talk to us about speed-growing coral. But don't feel too sorry for her, she's in the Bahamas. But first, the Home

Secretary, Priti Patel, has requested an urgent update from police following a space of recent cases of women's drinks being spiked, with police in Devon and Cornwall warning of women having their drinks spiked at house parties to multiple reports of women being spiked by injection in clubs in Glasgow and Nottingham. Last night, a journalist and author, Lucy Ward, shared a text message from her daughter on Twitter which went viral.

She's a first-year university student and she shared in this message from her daughter on Twitter, which went viral. She's a first year university student, and she shared in this message that six of her friends had had their drinks spiked. And she says within the message, quote, the injections thing is the most recent thing they're now doing. Girls are wearing denim jackets because the material is harder to pierce. Lucy Ward, good morning. Good morning.

I should say, first of all, of course, I mentioned there about the Home Secretary. Quotes and comments this morning from various police forces are stressing while they are looking into this, it is linked to a small number of victims, but shocking nonetheless. It is incredibly shocking. I mean, I recognise that it's a small number of victims, but I think what it's helped do by that we've almost started to forget it. It's

just something that happens to people and that's certainly something that my daughter seemed to feel and I just felt we needed to bring that back into focus. Yes and of course not just within clubs also within house parties wherever I suppose anyone is drinking and you're right to an extent perhaps that has become not normalised, but something we aren't shocked about or talking about as much. The injection element, though, and what your daughter said, girls wearing denim jackets. Tell us more about that from what you have heard. I read about this on Twitter and I saw that it was being reported in newspapers. And so that prompted me to contact her myself and say, have you come across this?

And she replied with the response just completely without me prompting further that I've put on Twitter. And I felt I wanted to sort of share that because I think that we need to hear young women's voices directly. So I'm just there really to sort of try and showcase what they're going through. And as she said, she hasn't experienced the injection thing herself, and it's not happening at her English university, as far as she's aware of. But it is happening clearly in other universities to other young women. And I think the important thing is that it may not be happening in an individual university, but the consequences and ramifications of it do affect students in no matter what university or for that matter, young women in any situation, because this only has to happen

a small amount of times and for people to hear about it and to recognise that it's possible for young women to have to take or to feel they have to take precautions about it. I mean, these sort of absurdity of them having to wear thick clothing in sweltering hot nightclubs in order to try and fend this kind of thing off. I mean, I looked at some other sort of suggestions that were being made for them in terms of spiking and a club in a city near us was suggesting that it could put cling film over their drinks in order to try and stop their drinks being spiked. I mean, we're protecting our young women with small pieces of thin plastic. It's just absolutely outrageous.

And again, in terms of the injections, as I say, no matter whether they directly feel that this is happening local to them or not, the consequences mean that no matter where they directly feel that this is happening local to them or not the consequences mean that no matter where they are they're limiting their own personal freedom they are making themselves smaller they're putting themselves into layers of clothing they're not going to places they want to go to their freedoms being constrained in a way that it should never have to be at precisely the time when they should be at their freest and most able to go and enjoy themselves what was that like reading reading that message of which I quoted part of from your daughter as a parent? Well, I consider myself, I'm not the sort of parent that sort of normally worries frantically

about my children. I have two daughters and a son, two of my daughters, the two daughters are both at university. And I regard the idea of a girl going off to university a young woman as something extraordinary it's an opportunity to go and study and to become yourself and to do something wonderful and it should be as I say the freest time you could have and I so I'm not someone that sits at home and thinks oh what a shame they're not there anymore or even worries unduly that they're out and about. But, you know, this has made me think again. It made me have yet another conversation with her where I say to her, how do you feel? What sort of steps do you take?

And, you know, I am really, I am so reluctant and so furious at the idea that I should or any other mother or parent should have to say to their children, their daughters, you know, maybe don't do that. Maybe stay not so late. Maybe don't go out at all, maybe wear something different. Why should we do this? Why endlessly should we have to make protection the responsibility of the victim? It isn't their responsibility. And there's something so sort of extraordinarily next level about the notion of injection. know you can you can put your plastic over your drinks you cannot buy a drink you can do what my daughter doesn't just not

drink in a club so there's this doesn't happen to you but if someone comes up to you and you are unaware and does inject something into you you know you have there is nothing you can do even though you shouldn't have to do anything anyway. That's just absolute outright assault. And you can't. The only protection you can possibly have if you want to make sure that doesn't happen to you is not to go to those places. Well, yes, there have been campaigns. And one I was reading about Girls Night In calls for boycotts of nightclubs in at least 30 towns and cities. A message here from Deborah saying to you as well, it's not just women. My son had his drink spiked while out in Birmingham. The police didn't want to know.

A message there with both elements, I suppose, about what's actually being done about this or what's the feeling on that. A message from Kath. My daughter was spiked when things opened up post lockdown, I presume. Not super careful. She was injected Monday night. Lost use of her legs. Luckily with friends. Vomited all night and all next day. I wanted

her to go. She wouldn't and when she couldn't feel her legs. I think there's a word missing there perhaps to hospital. Sorry the bouncer came over and a guy was behind her. I think she was talking about perhaps wanted to go to the authorities actually actually, but I don't know what that word was. But that's a story there from someone listening about their daughter being injected very, very recently, which I wanted to bring to our listeners attention. I should also say, when you talked about some of the the ones that have come to light within the news, a man has also been arrested in Nottinghamshire as police investigate these reports of women being injected.

Police say a 20-year-old man was arrested after one woman reported a scratching sensation and suspected her drink had been spiked at a club in Nottingham City Centre this weekend on Saturday. Lucy Ward, thank you very much for talking to us after sharing that message and bringing your daughter's experience and your views to light on this. And as I say, the Home Secretary

Priti Patel has requested an urgent update from the police following these cases. And when we have that, and if we have that, I'll bring it to you. But sticking with the law, but a different area, on Friday there will be a second reading in the House of Lords of a private members' bill on assisted dying.

It's been tabled by the crossbench peer, Baroness Molly Meacher. And if it passes, it would enable assisted dying in England and Wales to be a choice for adults who are mentally competent and in the final six months of a terminal illness. Two doctors and a judge would assess each request. Ahead of that, nearly 1,700 doctors wrote to the health secretary yesterday to oppose the weakening of assisted suicide laws, as they see it, saying they will refuse to help patients kill themselves. The Royal College of Physicians and now the British Medical Association, the BMA, have now dropped their opposition to assisted dying and moved instead to neutral positions. Former Scottish Conservative leader, the recently ennobled Baroness Ruth Davidson, will be giving her maiden speech as part of this debate.

She formerly was against changing the law on assisted dying, but has had a change of heart last year. We don't often hear about changes of hearts. Lady Davidson, good morning. Good morning to you, Emma. We really don't in politics. It's quite a rare thing. And I thought we'd start there because you had a change of heart around some specific circumstances. Tell us more. Well, I think, you know, we had this come up in a private member's bill in Holyrood about six years ago. And I stood down from the Scottish Parliament in May and I think after a decade in there,

you kind of look back over what your decisions have been and you kind of smile at the wins and you mourn the losses and you fret over the ones that you think got away. And this is one that has nagged at me for years because the way in which the law was written in the private member's bill, it was badly drafted and it would never have made it into law. And I think even though it was a free vote, so people could vote any way they wanted, two to one, you know,

we struck it down at the first issue. And I think it was because it was easier to deal with the text than it was to deal with the complicated situation. And in my head, and I'd listened to testimony from people, I understood why people wanted this. And there was something in my gut, possibly to do with my head, and I'd listened to testimony from people, I understood why people wanted this. And there was something in my gut, possibly to do with my faith, to do with the position of my church, to do with the fact that my sister is a doctor, that made me, you know, kind of push against it. And I think the changes for me have actually been something that have been tangential to that. So part of it has been having a child by IVF and how medicalized the start of life can be and 50,000 people in Britain use IVF and you can use donor material that you screen for

eye color and family medical history and and you know some of the the invasive procedures are so medicalized at the start of life that it makes a bit of a mockery of the idea that you can't have medical intervention at the end um but but also a lot of people close to me have been um are suffering from cognitive issues like dementia like alzheimer's like vascular dementia these wouldn't be covered by the bill nobody with a cognitive impairment would be allowed to to you know are specifically they're prohibited by this but to flip it on its head watching somebody that you love be stripped of themselves and when their body's healthy but their mind is dissolving to flip that on its head and have somebody whose mind is absolutely acutely sharp but their body is failing them in the most

unimaginably horrifically painful way that is unendurable and then telling them that they have to endure it because the law says so and that if anybody helps them, they'll get 14 years in the jail because that's the price for it in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It feels to me profoundly unchristian. And that's one of the reasons why I've changed my mind. I mean, there's quite a few in there. And I think actually just... Yeah, it is. It's not one thing. It's a hugely complex issue. It is. And you've put us very well within it. And I wanted to put a couple of points to you actually from the doctor's side on this, because you mentioned that your sister is one. But just before I do, just to pause on the IVF insight that that gave you.

I think that is a fascinating one to have given you a new vantage point because of what you can do to create life. And so many people do now. You know, I was astonished to find out that across the United Kingdom, it's over 50,000 people take advantage of some kind of fertility enhancement services, whether that's IUI, IVF, or something else. Now, a lot of that time, it is people who have both an egg, you know, and sperm material there. sometimes it's people who need an egg donor if you need a sperm donor etc but even just being able to have um the point of fertility to have egg retrieval to be able to freeze your eggs all of these different things it's so medicalized and there's so much help that's available that it does take away the kind of the kind of god's plan of it the

kismet the you know whatever it it is that you want to call it. And it did make me look at situations and the imbalance between the choices you have to start a life and the choices you have in terms of agency, even at the end of your own life. And I think. I was going to say, it's a funny thing. I also have been through IVF and there is a terrible thing when you have heard people debate it, which is, if I may put it like this, that you are meddling, right? That you are interfering. It's a terrible thing that can come into your own mind about it, whether it's whether not that it's right or wrong. But you just think I personally felt as so many, I'm sure, do. I don't want to speak for anyone else. What a time to be alive that there are these options, right? But it's funny how it can change views that you had

or views that you have about other things. It does. I think having children does change your perceptions of lots of things generally, but I think the process is particularly gruelling, even when it's successful and lots of times that it's it's not and a lot of people who ultimately have been successful have had times when it's not been first yeah but but i don't want to dwell too much on that because i think there's so much in the issue at stake in terms of end of life and one of the people that was speaking to a

group of mps and peers yesterday was a 37 year old woman who has a stage of MPs and peers yesterday, was a 37-year-old woman who has stage four bone cancer and she knows exactly what's coming. And she talks about the imbalance that she felt, how unfair it was. And I'll read out a quote because I wrote it down because I thought it was so profound. It feels unfair that those who don't have a terminal illness are making decisions on behalf of those who do.

And we know that there's a vast majority of support in the public for this. It's 70s, 80s percent of people that want to see a change here, but only about 35 percent of MPs want. And I'm urging colleagues in both houses to allow us to talk about this more and perhaps get to a stage where each of the parties will have in their manifesto a commitment that government time can be given to this issue, that we can have a discussion about it. But a lot of doctors, not least the nearly 1,700 who have written,

feel uncomfortable. One of the conclusions of this letter to the Health Secretary, and Sajid Javid hasn't commented yet, is we would not take patients' lives even if they asked us to, but for the sake of all of us, of us all, and for future generations, we ask that the law remains unchanged. And one of the things that they put to that is any change would threaten society's ability to safeguard vulnerable patients from abuse.

And there's a bigger point. It would undermine the trust that the public places in physicians and send a clear message to frail, elderly and disabled patients about the value that society places on them as people. If we take those in turn, it would threaten America, Canada, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, where over 200 million people come under these sorts of laws that have worked out sorts of protections over the last 20 years. And in none of these countries, and I stand to be corrected, have they had buyer's remorse and they've wished to rescind those laws. But to take a bigger point, I would never ask Sajid Javid, the health secretary, to discount the views of those 1,700 doctors, but neither would I ask him to discount the 14,000 doctors that responded to the BMA's largest ever survey of the medical

profession on this issue last year, who said that they personally wanted to see a change in the law and that the majority of physicians in this country do want to see that change, much more than those who don't. But the second thing that I would want to say on this, Emma, is we've had discussions around this before, decades ago, when it came to permitting abortion in this country, about what doctors would be compelled to do. And we know, and doctors know, the choices and agency that doctors have. When they leave medical school as a newly minted doctor, they're not compelled, you know, to go to a particular clinic. they make choices whether they become an anaesthetist or a general practitioner or an oncologist or a paediatrician

you know they make all sorts of choices and they choose to apply for a number in a certain hospital or in a certain clinic or in a certain GP surgery so there is no compulsion here and under the the actual way in which this bill is drafted as you you outlined at the start of the programme, it's not actually the doctor that is administering this dossier either, it is the person themselves. So I think, one, we've got over 20 years worth of examples of good practice around the world where protections can be built in. Two, I would never discount those people who don't want to have this, who have an objection to it, particularly those in the medical profession. But I would ask them not to discount those who do want it. And a big imbalance that I see in the arguments in this debate is that those who want this, who desperately,

desperately want it, are not compelling those who don't for it to happen to them. But those who don't want it are denying those who do. And I think that is a genuine imbalance. Do you think when we've got some issues, to put it mildly, with some people, you know, losing their jobs in care right now because they won't get jabbed. And one of the reasons they won't get jabbed is they don't trust doctors.

They don't trust science. They don't want a jab for whatever, you know, I'm paraphrasing people's reasons. That issue around trust in physicians and trust in authority that these doctors are citing could be undermined by this. Are you concerned by that when we've seen what's happened with vaccine hesitancy and even anti-vaxxers well i think we should all be concerned by people that don't um want to accept or uh absorb the

health messages that are being given but again i would point to 20 years years worth of examples that we have around the world, and, you know, and countries like us. So it's English speaking countries like Australia, America, New Zealand, and Canada. It's European countries like Spain and Switzerland and, you know, Belgium and the Netherlands. You know, they've not seen a crisis of confidence in their medical professions following changes to this law. While this debate is incredibly important and matters so much to those people that this affects and that you have been hearing from very compellingly, it does not seem to be something politicians, while they are in office, wish to commit to en masse, as you already alluded to. This Telegraph report, for instance, today says that it's understood the prime minister and the health secretary are not pro a change in the law. Now, I mean, that's just how it's been attributed. What's your understanding of the of the reality of this actually changing politically?

Well, between the two of us, Emma, you and I have got several decades of being political watcher of of in my previous job before politics of interviewing politicians not as tenaciously as you do now and then becoming see how this goes by the end of it yeah go on well i i'm becoming one and both of you and i know that a private member's bill on a huge societal change like this in the house of lords has a vanishingly small chance of ever becoming more in its current state so i'm'm in this for the long haul. I think this is one of the great societal shifts that we're going to see. I think we need to do it in a way that brings people with us. I think we need to have a grown up conversation in this country that allows for people, you know, to say that their mind has changed, allows for people to say

that they're unsure, that allows them to admit doubts and to talk to people and that's part of why I would love it if the vote on Friday permits this to go to a second reading so it sort of permits us to get past second reading into the committee stage so that we can talk about the nitty-gritty of some of the protections that would be there and some of these details but they would also just take us a step forward in discussing this within our own families and within our own communities because it's not just politicians that don't like talking about end of life issues. And it is tough. And it does. It is a place where faith and belief and community and love and pain all intersect. And these are hard. These are hard conversations to have.

But I think they are important conversations. And I hope that we can do it in a really inclusive and grown up way. You talked about societal shift there. I am minded to mention that you resigned a few months from frontline politics after returning from maternity leave, saying one of the parts of it, you didn't want to spend 100 hours a week away from your child. Do you think we'll ever have a political system which actually takes into account that politicians are people, may have lives, may wish to see family members? Well, I think, to be fair, look, politicians make a road for Rumbach as well. You know, there's no set outline of what being a political leader looks like,

what being an MP looks like. People also choose to work, you know, five nights a week, as well as five days a week, plus two weekend days, and spend time away from their family, because they want to do the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing. And we want politicians that are motivated and have public service, but we do have to accept that they have legitimate choices to make. And I think we do have to understand what it takes out of somebody, and what it costs them as well. And, you know, nobody's going to play the world's smallest violin for politicians. You know, you choose to put your name on a ballot paper and, you know, I'm as guilty as anybody else.

But maybe events in recent weeks just remind people again that folk, whatever colour of ribbon they wear, most folk are in it for the right reasons. And your view on Boris Johnson, how is that going? You said in 2019, you had personal concerns about what kind of prime minister he would be. Well, you've had some time to appraise that now. You're talking about changing your mind. Have you changed your mind on Boris Johnson? Well, I tell you what, if he committed, we're probably only three years away from the next general election, if he committed to having government time to a large open debate on assisted dying and giving everybody a free vote and encourage other parties to do the same, he would absolutely go up in my estimation.

So he's down at the moment, but for other reasons too? Well, I didn't say what the baseline was. But look, people know that he was my choice in the leadership. I'm interested in what you're not saying, not just what you are saying, Ruth Davidson. Well, look, where I agree with him, where I think he's done good things on stuff like support for furlough in terms of the vaccination programme, I praised him on things like British National Overseas Passports

for Hong Kongers coming to this United Kingdom. I've praised them where I disagree with them on things like taking the £20 uplift from Universal Credit away. I've been honest about that too. And, you know, I'm afforded a platform because I've been in Holyrood and because I now sit in the second chamber at Westminster. There are thousands of people across the United Kingdom that don't have the platform that I have, who I think if we have a bigger, wider debate and conversation about end of life issues, should be allowed to have their voices heard. People who have terminal illnesses, people who are affected by this, people who've seen their loved ones die, you know, they don't

have the privilege of the platform that you have or that I have. And their voices need to be heard too. And I hope that we can have that conversation in a bigger way. Baroness Ruth Davidson, thank you very much for your time and talking about that platform that I have and you have, we've just had a message from Sarah who says, my father died on the 30th of July. I was by his side 24-7 at home for his final five days. This experience was traumatic and changed my view on dying. Before I witnessed his death, I used to say I wasn't scared of dying. Now I am.

I believe we behave more humanely towards our pets than we do our loved ones. And something has to change. We need to give back dignity and control to those at the end of their life. More messages also coming in around this issue and also our previous discussion and more generally of course if you do wish to get in touch to share something that you have changed your mind over however big however significant through to the small through to the petty I'd also very much like to hear from you because changing your mind we don't often talk about it and perhaps we don't often do it 84844 is the number you need to get in touch.

Now, a completely different question for you, but prompted by a lot of you getting in touch. Are you a keen knitter? I have tried and either I am doomed or I need a better teacher or more patience because it is tough. I respect all of you who could do it. Have you ever considered that patterns for your knitting jumpers, hats or gloves could be seen as having parallels to computer coding? That was a thought shared last week on Radio 4's Day of the Scientist by my guest, Dr. Emily Dawson, a lecturer at University College London. We were talking about trust, actually, in scientists, going back to a bit of a theme I was just talking about there. Well, that line of thought, that parallel between knitting and coding prompted a lot of emails from you, our listeners, about the idea of knitting being

connected to science and coding. Who better to explore this with than Sue Montgomery, a councillor in Montreal, Canada, who gets through some of her political meetings by knitting, and Hazel Tindall, a Shetland knitwear designer and knitting pattern tutor. Welcome to you both. Sue, you actually went viral a couple of years ago, didn't you? Because you were knitting a shawl in a council committee meeting in Montreal. And with that pattern, you showed your followers something interesting. Yes, that's right. I was a new councillor in City Council in Montreal, and I noticed that despite us having parity, almost equal number of men and women, the men tended to talk a lot more than women. So I decided to track that by knitting in red when men spoke and in green when the women spoke.

And my shawl ended up being mainly red. So it was sort of like data in real time. And some people called it rage crafting, which I particularly liked. I wasn't really enraged. I was just, yeah, I just, because I tried speaking to some of these men after the meeting and saying, you know, why do you talk so much? You don't need to repeat your point 10 different ways. And also, do you not realize that nobody's actually listening to you? Like, do you not notice that people are dozing off or, you know, doing something on their computers or whatever, not listening? And they said, no, no, I don't talk that much.

And like they had no self-awareness. So I thought this was a really good way to demonstrate to them by showing them the chunks of red that demonstrated their speech. But of course, they still didn't believe me that they spoke too much. You know, even after seeing the live data. Even though you created a shawl to show the code yeah as it were what do you make of that uh comparison to coding well i think it's uh it's a and i'm not the only person to do this with knitting i saw another woman i think she was in england actually, where she knitted the train delays into her shawls.

Like every time her commuter train was late, she would sit there and knit. And that showed different times of the train. I've also seen it done for climate change of different temperatures. So they use different colors for the hotter temperatures of our planet. So I mean, I think it's a fantastic way to show data and it's very visual and, you know, quite accurate. Well, as I say, I'm in awe and whatever people create around me, whenever I see it, I wonder how. Hazel, welcome to the program. Thank you. I believe you've held

the title of the world's fastest knitter, is that right? Well, as far as I know, I still hold it, but nobody's taught me otherwise. You keep it then. I'm definitely not taking it away from you. How did your love and fascination with knitting and creating patterns begin? Well, I started probably as soon as I could focus on movement I would have been watching the ladies in the family knitting so probably watching from the I don't know three months old six days a week they would have been knitting and then I started knitting myself before I could went to school I don't actually remember learning. Yeah, you don't remember a life pre-knitting.

No. What do you make of the idea then of the parallels between knitting and code? Because you also teach people and write patterns, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, you're speaking to somebody that dropped science at the age of 13 or 14, so it's a bit of a strange world for me. But I can understand, yes, coding, because there is a language for knitting patterns that's gone a long way back.

Well, I was going to say, I know that you could perhaps read me and read all of us a line of instructions and translate. Yes, I've tried to choose not too long a line. So this would be for sizes three and five, round nine, asterisk, K1, K2, open brackets, K3, K2,og close brackets twice comma open brackets k4 comma k2 together close brackets Rep from asterisk once more. 76 STS deck colon 374 STS REM. I so hope someone, Hazel, has only just tuned in at that exact moment and really thinks everything's changed. And we're speaking in knitting code, knitting pattern.

What did that mean? A little bit of? It's a decrease row in a Fair Isle yoke. Of course it is. And so it's telling you how many stitches you knit and how often you do the decreases so that you decrease 76 stitches over the row. You know, we have a message that's just come in from Jemima who says, I am not good at following knitting patterns

unless I can rewrite them as code. I learned coding during my computer science artificial intelligence degree and I found it made knitting much easier. It's creative engineering in yarn and I see no reason why it should be undervalued. There you go. She likes to hack the sort of patterns you provide and have just shared with us. Sue, do you think it is undervalued?

Absolutely. Like most things women do is undervalued. You know, I got a lot of criticism for knitting in council, but in fact, it actually helps me focus uh when i'm knitting i can actually pay attention to hours and hours and hours of of debate in council and i'm probably the only one out of all 65 councillors who could tell you what's being discussed because i'm actually paying attention thanks to my knitting well yeah although you you may not, you may, I take the point there about knitting being undervalued. It's a point that's coming in. But you may have just been criticized because people think, you know, you're not focused, you're multitasking. Isn't it the equivalent of perhaps doodling, looking like you're not tuned in?

No, for sure. Like people, it just shows that people don't understand and you know not only with coding but there was a time in history uh during the war when women would knit uh messages to the allies uh in it was like most morse code into their uh patterns um to help out the allies to tell them where the Nazis were. So, you know, it's a very useful tool to pass on messages. Well, my tiny mind is blown. Thank you very much for joining us today. It's lovely to have you on and people can go and have a look. We'll try and share your shawl that you created.

Hazel Tindall, Sue Montgomery. Hazel Tindall, thank you so much to you. That was the first for me, certainly, hearing Knitting Code read aloud on the radio. I hope it's the last. Hazel, I'm getting you back for the Christmas special. Let me tell you, Hazel Tindall, still the world's fastest knitter, which we'll take.

And you'll keep unless anyone tells you otherwise, and I'm sure they won't mess. Thank you very much to both of you. Now, in the last couple of weeks, you may have read about the campaign to have Professor Kathleen Stock removed from Sussex University because of her views on gender identity

and biological sex, or the fact that Professor Jo Phoenix, the Chair of Criminology Studies at Open University, is planning on taking her university to tribunal, saying she's been made to feel like she's a pariah for her gender-critical views by her colleagues and has faced, as she says, a two-year campaign of harassment. Well, today, Women Talk Back, a feminist society at Bristol University,

is filing a legal case at county court against Bristol Students' Union after they say they were sanctioned by the university union for running a women-only meeting and women-only meetings generally, an issue that came to a head last March when they refused entry at one of their events to a trans woman. Raquel Rosario Sanchez is a PhD student at Bristol University, also a feminist writer and campaigner from the Dominican Republic and is president of the group. And I spoke to her just before coming on air this morning and asked her what the case

is about. We're suing the Bristol Students' Union because we were sanctioned for running a women-only feminist society. And we cited the law at the Bristol Students' Union as a reason why we needed to be women only. Our attendees said that they felt uncomfortable discussing very personal issues relating to the fact that they're female in the presence of people who were of the male sex. And we're talking about issues like menstruation, male violence against women, talking about sort of disability issues, all of these things that women go through as females. And they wanted this space to be just for women so we can talk about it. And the Bristol SU said that that was unacceptable and sanctioned us. So you're the president of this group, Women Talk Back,

and it's been affiliated to the union to do with the university since 2018. Yes. And we're talking about things coming to a head last year, aren't we? There was a particular meeting. Could you take us back to that? And for the listeners of Women's Hour, tell us what happened. So we had a meeting on the 1st of March 2020, and the meeting was called Boundaries in Feminism.

During that meeting, we had an incident in which trans activist students at the University of Bristol attempted to infiltrate that meeting, we had an incident in which trans activist students at the University of Bristol attempted to infiltrate that meeting. Now, because of our society being female only, we told the male trans activists that they were not allowed in. And they themselves admitted that they knew that Women Talk Back was only for women. They thought that if they came in person, that we would break our own boundaries. And we said, no, we decided to behold the principle of women's attack after that they filed a complaint against the against us with the Bristol Students Union and the Students Union sanctioned us. Let's come to what happened next in just a moment but

so I'm clear on what happened at that event how did you know that those people as you described them were activists? Because they had already targeted us at different events that we had held and we knew them from around campus because every time we held a feminist event, they would come and target us. How many people are we talking about? At the March 1st incidents, there were two students. Two students. And you describe them as trans activists. Are they trans women? The trans woman wanted to come in. The trans woman wanted to come in. And who else were they with?

They were with a female student. And we told the female students, of course, you're welcome to come in. This is a women-only society. We told the male student that they couldn't come in. Or as a trans woman, as they identify. So why wouldn't you let a trans woman come to the meeting? Because our attendees have repeatedly said that it is important for them to be in a female-only space so they can discuss sensitive issues relating to the fact that they're female. And they said that this was, they felt uncomfortable discussing it

in a mixed-sex environment and that in order to protect their privacy, their safety and their dignity, we had to be single sex. And then you're saying that this person, along with perhaps the other person, you tell me, went to the union and reported the group? Yes. And what evidence do you have that they wanted to come to the meeting to be part of the meeting

or not, in terms of what you're as about them as activists makes it sound like you believe they were coming deliberately to disrupt your group they told us they told us during the night that they knew that we were a single-sex society they told us that they knew that we were using the single-sex exemptions in the equality act but thought, well, if we showed up in person, we thought that you would just allow us in. And we didn't. And was it an angry clash? Did it get violent? Just so, again, we can imagine the scene.

Well, it was a 45-minute standoff in which I, as president, and some of the other women in the group had to repeat the law over and over again, just to sort of stress the point that there's a reason why. We're not being female only to be hateful. We're doing it because we want to prioritize the experiences and the needs of our attendees. And also, I just want to point out, we welcome the fact that there are other societies on campus.

Almost all of the other societies on campus are open to everyone. So we encourage the fact that there is an LGBT student society, there is another feminist society that is open to everyone. It just so happens that in ours, we centre women. And you then say they went, both of them, to complain to the union and you were sanctioned. What does that mean? Have you been able to meet as a group since? No, we were sanctioned and we were told that we had to undergo mandatory

diversity and inclusion training, essentially to teach all of us that we had to be inclusive of the male sex in our female-only society. We were told that I couldn't run as president or any leadership position for the next two years and that we had to modify our constitution. In our constitution, we cite explicitly the Equality Act 2010 and they said that we couldn't do that. So we had to change the nature of our student society. Your group lets in, as you say, women, but not just student women. So women from outside the university. Yeah, because we want to make the point that consciousness raising, what we do is that we gather together as women, and we talk about all of these little experiences

that we're taught are isolated incidents. And when we discuss them together, we realise that they're part of a larger pattern in society. And that's what consciousness tracing is. So for us, it's important that women who have never received an education, who cannot afford to be students at the University of Bristol, that they feel welcome to. But the reason I also ask that is some people listening to this might be thinking, well, if it's such an important group, obviously lockdown happened and other things happened last year,

but if it's such an important group and you want to be able to meet and you include women who are not part of the university, why not take it away from the university? Why not have the meeting elsewhere in a, I don't know, a church hall or somewhere else? There are some perks to being a feminist student society that is affiliated with the Bristol Students' Union. For example, we had a space at the multi-faith chaplaincy and that's where we held our meetings every Sunday.

If we wanted to have large events, it means that we didn't have to pay venue costs. If you're not affiliated, you have to pay venue costs. But by being affiliated, we didn't have to pay venue costs. But by being affiliated, we didn't have to pay those hundreds of pounds. And we got some sort of support in that way. But you haven't been able to meet since last year. Yeah. And to clarify that point, is that because you've been sanctioned, as you say, or because of lockdown? Because we've been sanctioned.

Your understanding of how those sanctions would be lifted is what? Well, we would have to comply with the demands of the Bristol Students' Union, which is that we stop being female only. And so now you're in a situation where you're taking this to court. I've got a statement here from the union saying, we appreciate this is a serious and important matter. We've received a letter before action from Raquel's lawyers on the 11th of October. We're in the process of replying to that letter and expect to continue a dialogue over the coming months. That's from Noel Rumble, the co-chair of Bristol's Student Union Trustee Board. Why is it so important to you

to take this action? This isn't something that happened suddenly. We have spent the past four years trying to be in that dialogue with the Bristol Students' Union to let them know why it is so important for our attendees and for us to centre the lives and the experiences of women. And at every single stage, we have faced rejection and we have faced sort of disapproval. So it's not something that we decided to take lightly. We are taking this litigation because we know that the law is crystal clear on this. Women are allowed to have single sex spaces and services. But what's happening around the country is that women are frightened to use the law because we think that if we use the law,

then we will be labelled transphobic. But then when we do use the law, then we're sanctioned. And that's unacceptable. Women shouldn't have to resort to raising thousands of pounds just to have the rights that they already hold being upheld. There's a difference, of course, though, between being sanctioned, which is what you just described, and then you said before this incident last March, there was already issues, disapproval. What do you mean by that?

Well, every time we tried to have a meeting, public meeting with feminist speakers, for example, Julie Bindel or Pragna Patel from Southall Black Sister, the Bristol Students' Union would make us pay for security because they admitted that there was a risk that all of our meetings were going to be targeted by trans activists. Now, the answer to that is, it is the Bristol Students Union or the University of Bristol that should create policies to contain their trans activist students. Instead, they made us responsible for their behaviour and we were the ones being targeted. Because we should also say, I should also say at this point, that you're taking your own case against the university. So this is not the union. You first made a complaint back in 2018. What is that case about? The case is about a campaign of vilification and intimidation that I have endured ever since I became a student, a PhD student at the University of Bristol.

Your PhD is in? Gender and violence. So when I came to the United Kingdom, I was already a feminist writer and I was invited to an event by the feminist organisation Women's Place UK. And the second that that event was announced, trans activist students at the University of Bristol

thought that that was unacceptable. So they became enraged by the fact that as a PhD student, I was participating in feminism that they didn't agree and they started a vilification and intimidation campaign that went on for almost two years. I filed a complaint because the university policies are very clear that that is not acceptable. The university selected some students and started a disciplinary process against some of them. And that went on for over a year and a half. Throughout, the students kept targeting me at every single event that I would go to. And what I mean by that is that trans-active students were encouraging people to physically assault me, to punch me, to throw eggs at me. When I was due to give evidence, they were encouraging people to yell that I was scum, scum, scum.

So obviously, the university named that behavior bullying, harassment, and unacceptable behavior. At that point, the universities, the trans activist bullies got legal representation, I was cross examined by my bullies barristers. I was also asked questions by the university decided to drop the disciplinary process, citing security concerns by their own balaclava-clad students who would protest every single hearing and every single meeting that I attended. So what I'm saying is that is not acceptable. That is a climate of intimidation, vilification that has been fomented in universities. I want to go back to that in just a moment. But what was the upshot of those investigations, the university's investigations? Nothing happened. Nothing happened at all against anyone? No, nothing. No. The only thing that happened is that I was cross-examined and I was asked questions about my feminist views. But the people who were actually targeting me and encouraging people to physically assault me never had to answer questions. A spokesperson for the University of Bristol says this, all concerns about harassment and bullying

or bullying are taken seriously and where appropriate action is taken in accordance with university policies. Ms Sanchez has chosen to take legal action against the university given this we are unable to comment further. When you talk about trans activists, can you give us a sense because again, you know, each person's life or each person's campus, it seems there are different things going on. And people would like to understand, I'm sure the experience of that. Are you talking about whenever you did an event? Or are you talking about day to day? And how many people are you talking about well when the bullying and harassment started back in january 2018 it was hundreds of people and i didn't know

anyone i had just gotten to the uk um and then at every single event it would be i don't know it would depend on the event but it was, like in the dozens of people. And are they students? Yeah. And the university acknowledged that they were students too. And I just want to say, you know, there's a reason why institutions have policies against bullying, harassment and the intimidation of people. And that is because that has an impact on people. It has a negative impact on people. So it's not just it's not good enough to just say, well, we uphold free speech or we have these policies in place. If the policies are useless or if they refuse to use them because they're scared of their own trans activist students.

What would you say the impact has been on you? It's been significant. You know, it's been significant to the point that one of the claims in my litigation against the University of Bristol is negligence. Imagine if your workplace said that bullying, harassment and intimidation against you by your colleagues is acceptable and that it will happen with impunity. I don't go to campus. I haven't gone to campus since the university turned their entire process on me because the university has sent a very clear signal that it is okay to bully and harass me. And that's dangerous. That is dangerous for academia. That is dangerous for

all feminists who may want to discuss what I'm discussing. Women should not have rights in law and policy that mean nothing when institutions don't want to uphold them, when institutions are willing to throw them under the bus the second that trans activist students or staff decide to target a feminist. I think that I'm a human being. I am a woman. I'm an immigrant. It is so dehumanizing to go through what I have gone through in a country where I have no family and I'm by myself. So I don't want other students to go through what I have gone through. What we're witnessing in academia when it comes to feminists who support sex-based rights is that that line has been crossed and institutions instead of standing strong and sending a message that no this is not allowed they are frightened of their own bullies and it should not be up to individual women like myself

like Hackingstock like Jofines to have to be brave and courageous to stand up for ourselves institutions should have policies and they do have policies in place that prevent things from crossing the line and they are not doing that raquel rosario sanchez a phd student at bristol university and president of the feminist women's society women talk back now i did promise you a woman who has got up very early for us indeed and she's part of the company that grows coral in the bahamas which was one of the winners at the inaugural earthshot prize the new annual awards created by the duke of cambridge to reward people trying to save the planet five winners were announced at the star-studded ceremony in london on sunday, each receiving a million pounds.

One woman part of that team that bagged a gong for speed-growing coral in the Bahamas, Alana Vallecote, Coral Vita's coral restoration specialist. Welcome to the programme. Congratulations. Thank you so much. Good morning. It's really, really sweet to be on this radio show right now. How early is it with you? It's currently about 6am, but I've been up since 4 to be ready to speak to you. Yeah, I know, but you live in the Bahamas, as I've said, so we have limited sympathy because we wish we were there too.

Tell us, how are you are one of the most beautiful ecosystems on the planet and also one of the most important. Coral reefs sustain a quarter of all marine life and support livelihoods of up to one billion people in over 100 countries and territories around the world. But unfortunately, coral reefs are dying around the world with half of the reefs already dead and if we don't figure it out soon we're on track to lose 19 percent by 2050 and this is detrimental not only to our oceans and everything that lives in it but to humanity as we know it but we use a special method that's been pioneered by lead scientists and top coral practitioners who we collaborate with. And it's called microfragmentation, where we're able to cut a larger piece of coral, say maybe, I don't know, the size of a dinner plate, I guess. We would cut it up into smaller pieces. And this triggers a rapid healing

response in this creature because corals are animals. If you didn't know, they're not rocks or plants, they're actually animals. It triggers this rapid healing response in the same way that your skin would react if you were to cut it or to have an abrasion. Your body would send oxygen and nutrients and everything that wound needs to heal faster corals do the same thing and so if you take a we'll say a coral the size of a fist that's a little bit better than it's in a place um and you cut that into um smaller pieces it triggers this rapid healing response but then if you plant them close to each other or place them close to each other as they grow they're able to fuse together

and recognize themselves and become a much larger piece than you started with, especially if you planted it across the size of something like a big textbook or a dinner plate. So growing corals up to 50 times faster than they normally would in the wild. That's amazing. And then you join those fragments you've grown onto the reef itself? Yeah, exactly. So we would have one colony of corals. Corals are very, very weird, but also super interesting and beautiful. And that if you have a piece of coral and you cut it up into several pieces, all of those pieces are still the same individual. So my name is Alana. It sounds awful,

but if you were to cut me into several pieces, if I were a coral, all of those pieces would still be Alana. And so when you plant them close to each other, they're able to recognize themselves. Yes. And then they can be transplanted on a reef that can actually be rehabilitated

because you can't just rehabilitate any old reef and you can't put a reef that can actually be rehabilitated. Because you can't just rehabilitate any old reef and you can't put a reef just anywhere. Reefs have special needs. They need special water conditions and water quality to grow and thrive. I mean, that is incredible. With such harm being done, it's almost a beautiful irony that by harming them a bit, cutting them can then help them heal, grow faster, and hope that they are rehabilitated in some way. I mean, I've probably

absolutely cobbled that in the way that I've understood it. But you explained it beautifully. And I think it's a really important thing to have heard more about. Just finally, what does winning this prize mean? Well, I guess, firstly, we're not quite harming the corals. This happens naturally. You can have a reef that's kind of high, that's a little bit shallow, and wave action can knock over a piece of coral. Or an anchor or a clumsy diver can knock over a piece of coral. I mean, I guess the anchor and the people aren't necessarily natural,

but coral fragmentation happens in nature all the time. But what this means to win the Revive Our Oceans category for the Earthshot 2021 prize, this means that we're able to launch farms in every nation with reefs across the world and kickstart this restoration economy that we so desperately need. Go do that. Alana Velikot, that's my time done.

Thank you so much for coming on Women's Hour. I'll be back with you tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Women's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. That's the moment it hit me. I'm like, oh my gosh, I think I'm in a cult. I used to think to myself, these people are mad, but until I realized that I'm mad as well.

I'm Paris Lees, and this is The Flipside. In each episode, I tell two stories from opposite sides of the coin, and use science to ask questions about elements of the human experience that we sometimes take for granted. I know that we're genetically related, but in my mind, I don't have the feeling that we are necessarily kin. My dad said, you know that we love you and I am your father, but... Subscribe to The Flipside with me, Paris Lees,

on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories BBC Sounds. 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.