Woman's Hour - Barrister Alexandra Wilson. The new breed of "Femtech" companies. Kamala Harris Vice-President nominee

Episode Date: August 12, 2020

Alexandra Wilson on her new book “In Black and White”. The story of breaking down barriers of race and class to become a barrister. She explains how losing a very close family friend to knife crime made her pursue a career in law and how she has overcome her family’s fears of becoming “part of the system”Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for President in this year’s US elections has finally named his running mate as Kamala Harris. Senator for California, she was Biden’s former rival for the Democratic nomination and will be the first woman of colour to be nominated for national office by a major political party. Kelly Dittmar, Director of Research at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, and Kimberly Peeler-Allen, co-founder of Higher Heights, an organisation supporting Black women into elected office, discuss the impact and reaction to her appointment. Plus we hear all about latest female technology firms - also know as Femtechs. Offering everything from period tracking apps to cooling menopausal bracelets - can they help women have more control over their bodies and their health? And the female authors looking to reclaim their name.Presenter Jenni Murray Producer Beverley Purcell Photo Credit; Laurie Lewis.Guest Alexandra Wilson Guest Berenice Magistretti Guest Billie Quinlan Guest Kimberly Peeler-allen Guest Kelly Dittmar

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, Jenny Murray welcoming you to the Women's Hour podcast for Wednesday the 12th of August. Good morning. In today's programme, the booming new industry known as femtech. What products are being offered to women and why has investment in this area exploded in the last five years? In Black and White, Alexander Wilson's story of a mixed-race Essex girl's years of hard work to become a barrister.

And no longer George Eliot, but Marianne Evans, the Women's Prize for Fiction, publishes 25 novels written by women who could only get recognition by posing as men. Now it's Mary Ann who wrote Middlemarch. As I'm sure you've heard in the news, the Democratic candidate for the American presidency, Joe Biden, has announced the name of the woman who will be his running mate in the November election. If they win, will be America's vice president. She's Kamala Harris, a senator for California who was Biden's former rival for the Democratic nomination. She's the first woman of colour to be nominated for national office by a major

political party. Well, I'm joined from America by Kelly Dittmar, Director of Research at the Center of American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, and by Kimberley Peeler-Allen, one of the founders of Higher Height, an organization supporting black women into elected office. Kimberley, how significant is her appointment, not only for women of color, but U.S. women generally? Good morning. It is extremely significant. Only three, this is now the third time that our nation has nominated a woman to be vice president and the fourth for a woman to stand as part of a major party ticket in our 240 some odd years. And women all over the country see this as a win, as being acknowledged for the contributions that we have brought in this country since its founding. For women of color and Black women and Indian women specifically,

it is a huge hat tip to all of our engagement, particularly for Black women in the Democratic Party who have been the backbone and the most reliable voters since they've had the right to vote. So it is a huge celebration all over. Kelly, what would you say has been the broad response to her? Yeah, I think there is a real palpable frustration with the underrepresentation that we've seen at the presidential level of women broadly, but as Kimberly noted, specifically of women of color. And that's in large part because, again, women have been the backbone of the Democratic Party, Black women voters, the most reliable

voters to turn out for Democratic candidates throughout U.S. history. And so this is a moment to really recognize that contribution and also hold accountable a Democratic Party that says it's inclusive and really touts its inclusivity. In this way, we finally see a ticket that starts to reflect that a little bit more. And so I think there's a lot of positive response and, you know, potentially a bump, a potential bump in enthusiasm and engagement around this ticket. And one important context for this or point of context is that it's really a moment to celebrate the nominee herself, in this case, Senator Kamala Harris, who's also only the second black woman to ever serve in the U.S. Senate in the United States, and less so to celebrate the decision, because I think this

decision, the decision to put a woman on the ticket again, only the third time in US history, it's really overdue. We should have expected this. This should start to be normal. Now, Kimberly, Biden promised that he would choose a woman. But why would you say he chose Harris? I think he chose Senator Harris because of all that she brings to the ticket. She is a. She has been a formidable presence in the U.S. Senate since she was elected in 2016. And the energy that she galvanized when she ran for president was something that many, many people took notice. And the number of Black women who saw themselves in her and went out and worked and campaigned on her behalf was really something that he needed to make sure that he continued and to be able to really have Black women feel like they were being appreciated for their service. And Senator Harris's record, her accomplishments and her life path as a woman who is the daughter of immigrants in this country was something that really brings a life experience that has never

been brought into the White House before. Kelly, she's been very critical of Biden in the past. How do you suppose he got over that? Yeah, I think this is common. When in our presidential nomination process, all of these candidates are put to the test and criticized. We know that Barack Obama, you know, and Joe Biden were rivals themselves during their own presidential nomination process in 2008, when Joe Biden actually questioned the qualifications of Barack Obama. And then he went on to be his running mate. So this is an unusual. And I think somebody like Joe Biden, as he has said in his announcement, can appreciate that, can appreciate that this is somebody who's going to push him hopefully to be better, to be more responsive, to be more thoughtful. And some of

the things that Senator Harris pushed Joe Biden on around race in particular are really important in this moment for him to be more thoughtful about. And so hopefully that sort of relationship that they've had will only strengthen the ticket more. And I think beyond the moments where you saw them on the debate stage go against each other, they certainly have an established relationship from working together over many years, not only when the senator was in the U.S. Senate, but before that, when she was attorney general, she had a very strong relationship with the Obama administration. So I think you'll see that going forward. And I think they're very ready and willing to sort of move beyond some of the differences that they had on the campaign trail.

Kimberly, there are a number of young vocal women of color like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez. What does Kamala being chosen mean for them, the younger women coming up? It shows them that they have a pathway, that there is definitely an opportunity to expand their leadership, to climb in the ranks. For people like Representative Ocasio-Cortez, it shows that she has a place at this table. And for women coming behind them, it really shows that anyone can do this and there is a path forward and that the electorate is ready. Kelly, if Biden wins at the age of 77 and serves only one term, could we be looking at the next U.S. president? I think that is certainly the context in which this election was made and why the selection of Senator Harris and any VP nomination in this race seemed to hold even more weight, because Joe Biden himself has alluded to the fact that he

could be a one-term president. And what this selection does, what this nomination does, I think, is really set up whoever it was going to be, now in this case, Senator Harris, to really establish herself as the potential next nominee for the Democratic Party and potential winner. So it does have more resonance than perhaps other selections we've seen in recent years. And I also think as a woman of color, what it does is it pushes our U.S. public, our citizens, to reimagine what we think of as presidential for so long. Other than Barack Obama, it has been all white men in this office and nearly all white men who have even run for this office. And so hopefully having a woman in this position starts to push back against questions that somehow a woman is any less capable or any less electable as a presidential candidate. Kelly Dittmar, Kimberly, Pilar, Alan, thank you both very much indeed for being with us

this morning. And we will, of course, watch this one very closely. Thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning. And we will, of course, watch this one very closely. Thank you both. Alexandra Wilson is a barrister. In her book, In Black and White, she explains what prompted a young mixed-race Essex girl to work hard at school, get a place at Oxford University, be inspired to study law, and work really rather crazy hours as a pupil and then a junior barrister.

She's now been practising for two years. Alexandra, what prompted you to write a book about your experience? Good morning. I think for me it was really important to open people's eyes to the profession, particularly young people who may be in a similar position to me, who thought that this profession wasn't for, you know, people like them. I certainly felt that way. I remember looking at the bar and just seeing it as a profession where, you know, everyone was white, middle class, predominantly male, and being none of those things, I thought that that profession was kind of closed to me. So it was really important to get the message out there

that anyone actually can become a barrister. It was the death of a close family friend that really led you to the bar. What happened? My very close family friend, you know, I consider him a cousin, he was killed when we were teenagers. It was a mistaken identity case and he was murdered by boys who were seeking to get revenge for their friend having been murdered by a rival gang that had nothing to do with my friend earlier that day. And they saw a young black boy in an area.

They weren't familiar with him. He wasn't familiar with the area, and he was murdered. Now, having experienced all of that, when you decided you wanted to go into the law, why did your family and friends have mixed feelings about you becoming what they call part of the system? I think for so many of my family and friends, many of whom are black, they associated the bar with the authorities of the establishment and you know the police predominantly and I think as many people will be aware there has been for some time quite a difficult relationship

between the police and a lot of members of the black community I think a lot of members of my family and my friends felt particularly harassed by the police. And that feeds into the court system. And so a lot of people saw me joining a profession that associates with the police. And obviously I prosecute as well as defend. A lot of people saw that and couldn't really understand why I'd want to be a part of that. Now, in an article in The Telegraph, you've supported Dawn Butler questioning stop-and-search powers, and I know there's been experience of that in your family.

What happened to your Auntie Sue and Uncle Pat? My Uncle Pat and Auntie Sue were stopped in 1982, so before I was born. My Uncle Pat was disabled. He was wheelchair bound and they were stopped in the car. And it was the police said it was because they were suspected of having drugs, although no drugs were ever found. And they were physically assaulted. They were verbally assaulted.

Very racist remarks were made. My uncle was pulled from the car. He was pulled. He was a rustafarian. He had dreadlocks and he was pulled by his dreads. He explained that he was wheelchair bound and so did my aunt. He was thrown in the back of a police van and my aunt was sexually harassed. She was asked to jump up and down naked. They did manage to sue the Metropolitan Police and were successful in doing so. But as you can imagine, those sort of experiences have a very lasting impact. And I know certainly my uncle and aunt were very distrusting of the police and the court system after that. What have you learned by being part of the system about how black defendants fare in the legal system?

It's still very problematic. I think there are still huge disparities in how black people are treated in the system compared to white people, and that can be very frustrating. You only have to look at the statistics to see that. Black people are overrepresented in the prison system. They're stopped and searched at a much higher rate. But I think being there on a daily basis,

the biggest thing I can see is that it's so often I go into court and you see such a difference between the people that you're representing and the people who are doing the representing. You know, the difference between the defendants and the barristers and the judges. For me, that's, you know, I'm hit with that on a daily basis. I quite often see a lot of black defendants coming in and out of the court. But still in our courtrooms, we're seeing mostly white barristers and judges. So for me that's still really difficult and it's something that I'm really pushing. And I know a lot of barristers and judges are,

and there's a huge effort to really improve diversity and it's something that I feel very passionate about. What's the response of those in the profession who prefer the way it was in the old days? You tell a story of one older barrister, shall we say. Yes, there are, of course, he felt that in there being a recruitment drive in the judiciary and focusing on improving diversity, he felt that was compromising quality. And, you know, this barrister approached me in a room where there were plenty of other barristers to speak to. But I was the only non-white person.

I was a young black woman and it did feel very targeted. So, yes, of course, esteem in the profession as more senior people, which is why I think it takes effort from all of us to make this change. You know, even those senior white male barristers, they need to be pushing for diversity just as much as, you know, the young people coming through. Because, curiously, it almost seems that it's beneficial for you to have your colour and your accent in making a relationship with your clients. Is that true?

I certainly think so. I think that often there is an element of surprise with my clients. I think a lot of my clients have seen that I'm very young. Often they're surprised to see that someone black is representing them. And having spoken to other black barristers, I think a lot of us have experienced that. But actually, I think it does often help to foster trust I think for many people it can be really reassuring to see someone who is similar to to you someone who doesn't seem worlds apart you know my my experiences I think can can bring a lot to those clients and and it can mean that actually I'm a little bit

more a little bit more relatable to them that There is a section entitled Where Are the Women? Where are they? The bar is actually doing quite a good job at recruiting women at the junior end. Certainly in my chambers, my co-pupil during pupillage was another woman and the two most junior tenants above me were women. And so I felt very fortunate to be around lots of young women. But I think

the main difficulty is keeping the women, keeping women at the bar. You know, I think the last statistics for pupils, there were slightly over 50% of female pupils, but as you progress in seniority, that drops. So I think of non-QC barristers, it's about 40%. And then of QCs, it drops right down to 16%. And we have to look at that and realise there is a huge problem. And it's a problem for us young women in the profession too too because where are our role models it it makes it very difficult I think for too long now there's been the same excuse of you know the bar is not compatible with a family life because of the long hours but actually one of the perhaps positive things to have come out of this lockdown period is we've really started to embrace remote hearings and that has

shown that actually there is flexibility that might you know in in court systems and and how we do our jobs that actually may be beneficial to women so I'm hoping that at the bar we embrace that and hopefully there'll be a positive benefit in the amount of women that stay at the bar. There are some very sad stories in the book because some of the cases, particularly with young people, are very hard. But there are also some funny stories in the book, particularly the Scottish client, Mr Brown and Miss Crow. Just tell me about those. yeah so um that was the first client you mentioned um was one who spoke to me and the court in a Scottish accent so all through my conference and then all through the court hearing and it was only at the end that you know he had a completely different accent when he said goodbye to me

and I I'd been completely duped and it was yeah I think it just it really does make you realize that actually um you know there are some more light-hearted sides of of our job you know there was another client who had pretended to have an injury and then essentially danced out of court so um yeah it our jobs have you know, and I tried to, in my book, I tried to capture some of those moments because the job can be very difficult. It can be very emotionally exhausting. You know, we're dealing with some of the most important aspects of people's lives on a daily basis and things that are very stressful. You know, people, I do family and criminal law and

you know that means that my work ranges from people who are perhaps at risk of losing their children to people who are losing their liberty so it's it can be it can have a real impact um on you know your your emotional well-being and so I just tried to capture in the book some of the more you know light-hearted and funny sides of my job too. Alexandra Wilson thank you very much indeed and a reminder that the book in black and white will be published tomorrow thank you very much Alex. Still to come in today's programme the Women's Prize for Fiction publishes books written by women who pretended to be men using their real names so George Eliot's Middlemarch would appear with the name Mary Ann Evans. What's behind the plan?

And the third episode of the serial, A Bird in the Hand. Now, earlier in the week, you may have missed Karen Mayne discussing her film Yes, God, Yes, or Daisy Johnson describing the inspiration behind her horror story Sisters. If you missed the live programme, you can always catch up. All you have to do is download the BBC Sounds app. Now here's a new term which feels quite surprising given how much we've learned in recent years about how so many products and systems are designed without women in mind.

It's femtech, or female technology. It's products and services that use technology often to focus on women's health. It covers things such as period and fertility tracking apps, hormone tests delivered to the door, and podcasts on how to maximise sexual pleasure. Investment in the area has exploded in the past few years, and it's predicted the sector will be worth $50 billion by 2025. Well, Billie Quinlan is the founder of Furly, an app that helps women have more mindful sex. Berenice Magistretti is a journalist and angel investor. So, Berenice, what examples of products that are being developed have really struck you as interesting? I think that, you know, you mentioned a few of the sectors in terms of

fertility and sexual wellness, and we are seeing more and more products and services in different areas of women's health. So you do have the fertility tracking apps, period tracking apps, you have smart breast pumps, you also have egg freezing services, you have products and services that target women that are going through menopause. So you really are seeing a wide range of products and services that, you know, address each stage of a woman's life across both Europe and the US. Just out of interest, how does a smart breast pump work? So it's, you know, you've had sort of the legacy pharma companies that manufacture the sort of very heavy, very noisy breast pumps. And now the idea is that you have these smaller sort of cups that you can fit inside your

bra that are silent, that have a much nicer feel and suction for the woman. And you can basically, you know, pump your milk while on a Zoom call or, you know, while working on your laptop. So it's a much more hands-free experience for a working woman. Billie, what prompted the idea of Furley? Yeah, good morning. So Furley came after I met my co-founder, Anna, and the two of us have both navigated negative sexual experiences through sexual assault and violence and we felt like there was nothing out there that really supported us on our journey back to pleasure and we felt that there's a huge sort of gap in the market to create

a product that would support women on this journey when we think about sexual health we typically think about disease prevention or reproduction. And at Furley, we're sort of turning that on its head to take a very pleasure-focused approach that supports women feeling great in their bodies and their beds, because realistically, we have sex for pleasure. So it's kind of mad to us that something like that doesn't exist. But how does it work? Great question. So our app is, as you sort of said at the beginning an audio guide to mindful sex

we draw on proven science-based tools and techniques following mindfulness cognitive behavioral therapy which is being pioneered by academics in canada to take women on a journey of kind of self-discovery so they learn about their sense of self their self-confidence their self-efficacy and they learn really practical tools that self, their self-confidence, their self-efficacy, and they learn really practical tools that they can bring into the bedroom and their day-to-day that help them be very present. And it supports women predominantly who are overcoming very common sexual difficulties, which is something that we don't really have an understanding of for women. We understand erectile dysfunction for men, but when it comes to female sexual difficulties, it's still a really unknown term, but it refers to things like an inability to orgasm

or low libido or anxiety around sex, which actually affect almost 51% of women. So it's certainly not a small number of us. Billy, how hard has it been to get investors interested in products for women? Well, we're going to come on and talk about Femtech, the term, I think, in a moment. But the VC landscape, the venture capital landscape, is predominantly dominated by white men. And when you come and talk about female products, it's something that they lack empathy for and lack an understanding of. So you have to take them on a real journey of education first. And I think, you know, traditionally, women's issues have been really disregarded or dismissed, which is why we have

the term femtech in the first place. However, as you rightly said at the beginning, this is changing, there is the tide is changing. And I think there are some incredible, very progressive investors and the rise of the female investor who are willing to invest in this space and recognize the huge potential in front of us so it it hasn't been super easy not every conversation has been enjoyable um but actually the women that we have on our cap table invested in Furley are really progressive investors that we're really proud to have along on the journey but when you compare that to someone like to male products that address erectile dysfunction like Roman and HIMSS I mean HIMSS just raised 197

million pounds so it's kind of crazy that the same for women doesn't exist yet. But, Berenice, this $50 billion projection by 2025 is a lot of money. How realistic is it for the Femtech area? Well, I think that one of the major misconceptions about the Femtech space is that it's a niche market. And, you know, I lived in Silicon Valley for three years and I interacted with venture capitalists and as Billy said, predominantly white men. And, you know, I would talk about the Fantech space and they would tell me, you know, it's interesting, but it's a bit of a niche market. So I think what needs to be clear is that it is an emerging sector, but the market is there. It's 50% of the

population. And in some cases, it's more than 50% of the population when it comes to things like fertility, because the men are involved, obviously. And sometimes it's the sperm that's defunct. So not sometimes, actually, most, you know, more than half of the time. So I think that the figure that Frost and Sullivan projected of $50 billion by 2025 seems right, because you are seeing more and more venture capitalists pouring money into the space. You've had a dedicated Femtech fund that was founded two years ago by Portfolio, which is based in Menlo Park, California. And you are seeing some of the big VCs inject in that space. You've had massive rounds in the past year. LV, which is based in the UK, raised $42 or $43 million.

You have Maven Clinic, which is a virtual clinic for women that just raised $45 million. So I think investors are really getting the fact that it's a huge opportunity and the market is there. But Billie, how likely is it that the very term Femtech limits its appeal to venture capitalists because there are kind of taboos surrounding some of the product? Yeah, Femtech was coined by Ida Tin, who is the founder of Clue, which is a period tracking app back in 2016. And it was coined because when she was raising money, male investors were having a difficult time talking about the investment that they made. So in order to make it more palatable and easier for male investors to talk about Clue, she coined the term Femtech. So now that they can say, we have Femtech products in our portfolio rather than breast pumps or period tracking apps. But I think whilst there are some benefits to having a category completely defined in this way, there are definitely some negatives.

It's an othering, we don't have a men tech. So the idea that we have a need to have a category for Femtech does create an idea that is a niche market. And, you know, 1949, Simone de Beauvoir published The Second Sex, which talks about men as the standard and the male pronoun he, him has long been used as a gender neutral placeholder. And here we are in 2020, still talking about women as other, femtech as an othering. And I think if we take that into another area, we don't have, in movies, we have chick flicks, which are for women, but we don't have dick flicks for men. So it is problematic in some ways that we do have an othering of this industry and the need to define it in this way. And it's something that we face definitely every single investor meeting that I've ever had, there has been a question about, is women a niche market? Are women a niche market?

And, you know, even last week, I had another pitch. And the moment they, I mentioned, we would eventually move into the male market, you could see the wash of relief over their face, as if, as if we're not 51% of the population. So I think that there are pros and cons to it. Berenice, there must be concerns about uploading confidential medical information to some of these apps. How do firms keep data entered into their apps completely safe? Well, I think that's a very, you know, interesting question in this day and age, because you see massive companies like, you know, Facebook that has issues with, you know, data privacy and data breach. And so I think that especially fintech companies have, you know, handled such sensitive content, confidential content, as you say,

they upload their sexual preferences, they upload their menstrual cycle. And so they want to be sure that it is protected. I think, you know, all of these companies are sort of making sure that their apps are secure. And I think the first question that they need to ask themselves is, you know, why are we collecting this data rather than how are we going to collect it? I think the why is very important in terms of making sure that they are asking for the right data and not just collecting data for the sake of data. What do you do with Furly, Billie? How do you keep people's information safe? Because that, again, is very intimate. Absolutely.

And I think Bernice there's hit it on the head is really only collecting data that is necessary rather than everything. And so we do a few things. Furly, the app, is available in 63 countries. Yet we follow strict GDPR rules that are across Europe. So even though the us don't have that we still have that for our us audience which is a really high level of data protection already

then we do things like encrypting names so that we actually don't have access to or the whole team doesn't have access to seeing the names of our users um and as many said we collect any data that is necessary and we would never sell that to third parties. So for us, the data we collect is purely to advance our understanding of sexual attitudes and behaviours rather than to sell on to profit from. And Bernice, finally, what's the scientific evidence for the efficacy of some of these products? I mean, I read about a CBD-infused tampon, for instance. Can women trust these products and devices will be safe? Because they can be expensive. Yeah, great question.

I think that before tackling that point, it's important to say that there is a huge gap in medical research and funding. And it's a huge gender gap, basically, because it wasn't until the 90s that the NIH in the US mandated women to be included in clinical trials. So for example, Prozac and ibuprofen was never tested on a woman's physiology. So we still need to understand a lot about a woman's physiology and reactions and side effects. And I think, you know, things like the

CBD infused tampons are a great way to learn more about a woman's, you know, body and reactions. I didn't know, for example, that there were cannabinoid receptors in the vaginal mucus that could absorb the CBD that's layered on the tampon. So that's extremely interesting. And I think that conditions like endometriosis, where the tissue that normally lines the inside of the uterus starts growing on the outside, which can be hugely painful and affects about 10% of women, for example, takes about seven years to diagnose and it impacts the same amount of people that suffer from diabetes for example and yet receives much much less funding so I think that we're still

at the very beginning of understanding a woman's body okay Berenice magistrate e Billy Quinlan thank you very much indeed both of you for being with us. And if you've tried any of these Femtech products we would like to hear from you. You can send us an email or a tweet. Now we know that women have been publishing their books under the names of men for some time. George Eliot, born Marianne Evans, is probably the best known. Well today 25 novels written by women, but apparently by men, are being published as e-books in a scheme called Reclaim the Name. It's to celebrate 25 years of the Women's Prize for Fiction, which was, of course, set up by Kate Moss. Kate, what examples

of the titles you've chosen have you got? Because often, they're not very well known. Exactly. Morning, Jenny. Lovely to speak to you. Yes, Reclaim Her Name is all about honouring the past. It's our 25th anniversary and we're celebrating the present and looking to the future. But this is about the women in whose footsteps we follow who were invisible on their book jackets. So you mentioned Marianne Evans, but there have been so many women that we've looked into. The researchers looked into 3,000 pseudonymous writers, women writing under male names, and certain themes came up. So I loved Anne Smith, for example, who published as Gregory Smith. She wrote a novel

called Attler, A Story of a Lost Island, and it was an adventure genre. And so she decided that she'd got no hope of being taken seriously as a woman writing in a genre which was completely and utterly male in the 19th century. Of course, one of the other ones, you know, Marianne Evans, she very famously wrote to her editor and said that she wanted to be incognito because she thought she could secure all the advantages without the disagreeables of reputation. So there were so many reasons that women published under male names, very much the idea of it not being seen as appropriate in the 19th century for women to write. For some, it was a question of safety, their writing against either male relatives or indeed regimes that would not allow them their voices. For others, it was this sense that they simply would never be printed if it was thought that the work was authored by a woman.

So we've got Anne Petrie, who published in 1946, a novel called The Street under her own name. And it's the first ever novel by an African-American woman to sell more than a million copies. But when she started out, she just didn't think there was any chance of her getting into print. So we've got her very, very first short story, Marie of the Cabin Club, which she published under the name Arnold Petrie. So not so far apart, but it was widespread. We found it in every culture, different periods of time. And we've got women, British, American, African American, Iranian, Japanese, Chinese. We just looked all over the world and saw what we could come up with to celebrate these women's

amazing writings under their real names. In how many of these cases, Kate, would you just know the writing was by a woman despite the name? Jenny, that's such a sneaky question, because and I know we've talked about this before. I think that in some you might, because the historical veracity is very much to do with a domestic setting, for example, the sort of intimate details that a woman of the 19th century living in America or the UK or France might know, whereas a man might not know. But then again, we can all think of every great writer, male or female, transcends everything. They are just themselves.

You know, we have Georges Sand in the collection, and she was Amandine de Gouraud-Dupin was her actual name. And she was better known in her day than Balzac and Hugo, both of whom we would think of as men that do write good women. But when you read Indiana, I think there is a real layered texture to it that suggests that

this is somebody who knows what it is to be a woman from the inside, if you like, rather than just from the outside. People should read all of them and then make their own decisions on that, because I think the jury is still out about whether you can tell on the page. There are clearly many more than 25 novels in the genre. How did you choose the ones that you would reclaim and publish?

Reclaim and publish. Well, this is a collaboration between one of our sponsors, Bailey's, and the Women's Prize for Fiction. And it is, you know, we chose 25 to celebrate our 25th anniversary. And it was an enormous process of many, many readers looking in university libraries, universities in this country, University of Delaware, and also reaching out to writers in different cultures all over the world who would recommend people to check.

So there were various things. Obviously, we needed to have a translation that was available because there are many women writing in many, many, many languages. But we need them to be available in English for our audience. So that obviously made a difference. We were looking at things that were out of copyright, but not exclusively. So a few of the authors, including Anne Petrie, for example, is in copyright. But her daughter was very keen for her to be involved in this and it was really a whittling down of trying to have a sense of um if you like books that sang um all were very significant in their day one of the things for me that is so important in this is it is about curation it is

about how easy it is for women to disappear from the shelves and not be visible so that when you look back at the classics of the past, it looks like it's wall-to-wall beards, but actually the women were there, but their works have not been honoured and celebrated in the same sort of way. How often, Kate, do you reckon it's happened in reverse? A man posing as a woman?

Well, we have not done the research into this and I throw the gauntlet down to somebody to do it. The folk history when I was in publishing back in the day was that there were certain gentlemen who, in order to be published in Mills and Boone, for example, or the romance genre, or certainly what at that stage was known as erotica, that often did feel that they would have a better chance if they were anonymous as women, if you like. But we don't know. We don't actually know. Truthfully, it's always about access. It's always about power. It's always about what is seen as valued. And, you know, Jenny, when we were setting up the Women's Prize, it wasn't about whether women were published or not. It was about women's work not being honoured and celebrated and championed at the same level. This old idea that the previous speakers were talking about, the idea that the default setting

for literature is white men, whereas everybody else is peripheral to that. But we are the story. Women's writing is the story. So the number of men who would feel that it was advisable to try to disguise themselves as women in order to get access to the market, is, I would say, by definition, probably significantly smaller. Whereas women in the 19th century and earlier in particular, and regimes that were not supportive of women reading and writing, obviously being a woman would be a disadvantage to being allowed to be published or to write at all. I was talking to Kate Moss tomorrow as part of our series about scars. You can hear Amy,

who lives with psoriasis. And I'll be talking to Professor Sarah Bridle, who thinks changing your diet can help save the planet. Join me tomorrow, two minutes past 10. Bye bye. Hello, it's me, Greg Jenner, the bloke from that funny history podcast, You're Dead to Me. Big news, we are back, once again combining the talents of comedians and expert historians as we explore stuff like ancient Egyptian pyramids, Genghis Khan and 19th century vampire literature. Search for You're Dead to Me on the BBC Sounds app.

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