Woman's Hour - Beth Mead, Women and choral music, Eating disorders

Episode Date: May 15, 2024

Over half of female footballers book pitches, only to find they’ve been reallocated to men. With twice as many women as men considering quitting the sport because of this, Arsenal forward and England Lioness Beth Mead tells Nuala McGovern about her concerns.A BBC investigation published today has highlighted the concerns of parents of vulnerable children sent hours away from home for urgent eating disorder treatment. They say there isn’t enough specialist mental health hospital care available locally on the NHS and they want an end to the postcode lottery. We hear from Donna whose daughter Annie had to be based far from her family and BBC Yorkshire investigations journalist Louise Fewster also joins Nuala.Mexican author and academic Cristina Rivera Garza has just won a Pulitzer Prize for her book about her sister, who was murdered in 1990. It’s called Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice. Cristina joins Nuala to explain why she feels she wrote it with, not about, her sister, whose name and image are now carried at demonstrations against gender violence.How has the role of women in choral music changed? With girls as well as boys now singing in cathedral choirs and more music by female composers being commissioned and performed, women’s voices are becoming increasingly prominent. Composer Cecilia McDowell and singer Carris Jones talk about championing and celebrating women in this traditionally male world.

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, this is Nuala McGovern and you're listening to the Woman's Hour podcast. Hello and welcome to Woman's Hour. Well, some terrific guests coming up. We have England lioness Beth Mead with us today. The Arsenal forward wants to change the current state of play where women can be kicked off football pitches to make way for men's teams. Also, the first full-time female chorister

at St Paul's Cathedral, the first in its thousand-year history. We're going to be speaking with Carys Jones about the rise of women and girls in choirs. Plus the author, Cristina Rivera Garza, who last week became the first ever Mexican to win a Pulitzer Prize. Also, maybe you heard in the bulletin there, you may have seen that changes to government guidance for schools in England is due to be published tomorrow.

So these will include a ban on teaching sex education to those under nine years of age. The BBC hasn't seen the guidelines yet, but a government source says they include plans to ban any children being taught about gender identity and if asked teachers will have to be clear that gender ideology is contested so my question to you are questions do you feel you know what you need to know when it comes to what your child is learning in sex or relationship education classes and do you feel it is appropriate? You can text the programme, the number is 84844 on social media, we're at BBC Women's Hour or you can email us through our website. For our WhatsApp messaging and voice notes, that number is 03700 100 444. But let us begin with a BBC investigation published today which has highlighted the concern of parents of vulnerable children

who are still being sent hours away from home for urgent eating disorder treatment. That is despite a government pledge to end the practice. They say there isn't enough specialist mental health hospital care available locally on the NHS across England and that they want to end the postcode lottery. Shortly, I'll be speaking to a BBC Yorkshire investigations journalist, Louise Fooster. But first, let's hear from Donna, whose daughter, Annie, had to be based far away from her family for the eight months that she needed to be in hospital. And that was a journey that required a two and a half to a three hour journey each way.

Donna, you're very welcome to Woman's Hour. Good morning. Thank you for having me on. So talk us through a little bit more about why Annie, your daughter, had to be so far away from you. Annie, our daughter, became very poorly, very fast. Our local GP surgery were amazing. They admitted it, it well they referred her instantly into the next next referral that's when it the system failed it was a local eating disorder team that didn't recognize how poorly Annie was we weren't taken seriously it spiraled so so fast week after week we were told to go home try again here's the meal plan we were told she wasn't poorly enough for the next step we were losing her basically how fast was it donna forgive me for

interrupting you when you say it happened very fast um i would say she we first noticed april time 2022 we finally got in with the local eating disorder team in May 2022 and she just stopped eating I had to get the local MP involved Kevin Hollenrake he managed to get as a highly specialist clinical psychologist who saved Annie's life because he found her a bed the bed at the local unit which is a general children's mental health hospital, said that she was too poorly to go there. So she needed specialist treatment,

which was miles away. And what did that mean for Annie and for you that she was those two and a half, three hour journey away from your family home? It was just awful absolutely awful um mentally physically financially it absolutely nearly broke us as a family we had to travel on the m62 which as anybody knows is not a nice road to be on

um it's just a full day just to go and see her. But sending her away saved her life. Annie couldn't really understand why we didn't visit daily like lots of parents did who were fortunate to live nearby. So they were popping on an evening to see their child in hospital. But we weren't in a position to do that. How often? We had children, sorry. Sorry, no, I was just wondering how often could you go and see her?

It must have been some juggling act because you do have other children as you mentioned absolutely we have another two daughters it was an absolute juggling act you do what you have to do for your child but it was just heartbreaking to leave your child so sad and just it was horrendous leaving her so far away from home but we had to do it how is annie now annie looks absolutely amazing but this doesn't mean that she's better people are quick to think oh she's been in hospital she looks good now everything's fine if only this was the truth she battles daily with her eating disorder the aftercare in the community is absolutely key. When the children transition out of hospital to come back to home, to school, to life, that care needs to be there still.

We were so fortunate we had the psychologist who believed in us and he got Annie better. And I just hope that other families have that as well. Well let's bring in Louise here. Louise welcome to Woman's Hour. What led you to investigate stories like Donna and Annie's? Morning Nuala. Well I mean I've been looking at children with eating disorders stories for many many years and I came across Donna's charity, must have been sort of earlier last year. So I was very much aware of Annie's story. But when I actually went to meet Donna

and got to talk to her, I suddenly realised the fight that the family have had to have to try and get the help and support for Annie. And it's when Donna said to me there just wasn't really anywhere that could help her. And the fact that we just had to send her miles away and, you know, just to try and, you know,

make sure she got better and the travel. And I just thought, well, what is there in North Yorkshire or the Yorkshire region? So I started to investigate myself what there is. And it was quite a challenge. I have to say it was quite a challenge to try and find out. I went across all the trusts in our area, in our region, to try and find, you know, and ask the question, if your child needs to be treated for an eating disorder,

what facilities are there in the region and the details were incredibly sketchy and yeah so I started to investigate exactly you know what is the situation because it could happen to anybody's child you know I myself when I was younger had an eating disorder fortunately it didn't get to the point that Annie, you know, got to, but it could have so easily been, you know, I could have still easily been in a situation of Annie and my mum and dad could have been in a situation like Donna and her family are. So, you know, it was just, you know, what is there when we know so much money is being put into the NHS at the minute? We know the pandemic has had a severe impact on children's mental health.

You know, what is there out there for children who have an eating disorder? Well, you know, really, I suppose in the throes of the pandemic, the government did pledge to end what they called the inappropriate out of area placement. So that was by the end of March 2021. Has that happened? Obviously, had not for Donna. Well, good question. It looks like it hasn't,

just according to the latest NHS data that we've been analysing. So the data, the latest data, it comes out on a monthly basis. And they didn't really officially record children with eating disorders until May 2022 so we haven't got a huge amount of data but the data that we've got shows that there's been a 15% rise in number of days children in England are spending miles away from home in mental health hospitals in the past year so that's not just only eating disorders that's

mental health in general and quite staggeringly and also and backs up pretty much what Donna and her family have been going through, and many others, Yorkshire and North East, along with London have seen some of the biggest increases from the year ending April 2023. Now, the government have said there is variations. Increases of what exactly? Increases in the number of children spending a long period of time in hospital, away from their homes, away from their families. We tried to find out exactly how many children are in units on a monthly basis. But because, you know, children come in and out and maybe some children will go away for a couple of weeks and then have to be readmitted

again it's it's been a little bit challenging to look at that kind of data so what we've had to look at is the data that the children are spending you know days weeks even you know could be a year away from from their families and and yet the government have said that that the variations in NHS data about inappropriate out-of-air placements may be in part because of changes in service provision or data quality limitations. So, you know, the data for Yorkshire and the North East is quite staggering that there are more days that children are spending away from their families because of the lack of provision in the local area.

So with that lack of provision, I did see the Royal College of Psychiatrists calling for more funding to meet the rise in demand for eating disorder services. But what is the demand? Has it increased that much? I mean, we have heard that the pandemic, of course, was difficult for many people,

including particularly some children yes well i was talking to a psychiatrist not so long ago in the yorkshire region and she was saying that last year she saw a huge amount of children coming to her with an eating disorder condition and and the help just just wasn't there She said it has sort of, the numbers are slightly going down now but there has been this increase and of course she said you know it feels like it's a bit of a postcode lottery you know with the increasing number of children being admitted to hospital with an eating disorder combined with a lack of specialist hospitals and also there's a shortage of really experienced psychiatrists that deal only with with eating disorders and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have said to me

you know eating disorders are stretched, eating disorder services stretched, thin on staff shortages and chronic underfunding as well and I've spoken to the eating disorder charity BEAT as well. And they're calling for the government and NHS England to better fund and staff the service. And I will come back to how they responded to that in just a moment, Louise. But Donna, Louise was mentioning a charity that you set up and it's called Kick Rexy Out.

Tell me a little bit more about the name and what you're doing. Yeah, that's correct. Kick Rexy Out. Rexy is the anorexia in our house. We named her because she's like another person trying to take away your child. So we want to kick Rexy out because she's not welcome. She's not welcome in our house or anybody's house. So we are based in north yorkshire

in the rydale area rydale scarborough and whitby at the moment we don't offer medical advice there's no medical advice given we are purely there for the families to support them they feel like they're so alone i know i did so we are sharing a lived experience and we can just support these families, a phone call, a message just to say it's OK, we've got you, we're listening. We are going to pilot a training scheme in our local schools from September. This is to raise awareness of the early stages of the eating disorders and also for children who are in recovery on what to say what not to say this is being supported by an olympic champion and also a clinical psychiatrist they're backing it as well so we've got them on board which is just fantastic and i can see your face light up as you talk about that which is great and i'm glad that you feel you're able to make some progress in getting rid of Rexy, as we are calling her.

Let me go back to you, Louise, though. You mentioned there about the government and the NHS England. How have they responded? Well, the government have told us that they are investing an extra £2.3 billion a year in mental health services and increasing capacity at children and young people's community eating disorder services across the country. We've also approached NHS England as well. Now they have acknowledged that more funding was still needed and that they are focusing on early intervention as soon as an eating disorder is suspected and of course the key is there is early intervention. You know the Royal College of Psychiatrists has also said to me, you know, early intervention is absolutely key.

You know, if we can get if we can try and help these children before it gets to the severe stage of an eating disorder, then very few of them will need to be hospitalised. And that's where they want the funding to be, to be more centred along is more frontline services, early intervention. Back to you, Donna. I mean, you mentioned how quickly it happened with your daughter, Annie. If there was a parent listening who was concerned about their child, what would you advise them now? Go and seek some medical advice. Go to your GP. You have to fight. Don't give in. You know your child better than anybody. It's not an easy journey. And you sometimes think, is it me? Am I making this up? But no, you know something's not right. And keep fighting. Keep fighting. That's

all I can say. But if you are in the Rydale area up in North Yorkshire, please feel free to contact Kit Rexy out. We have a website, a Facebook page, Instagram. So feel free to reach out. We're here. We're here to listen. Thank you so much for joining us, Donna.

And also to Louise F. Huster. We also have links to advice on the Women's Hour website. Lots of you getting in touch. I was asking a little earlier, do you feel you know what you need to know when it comes to what your child is learning in sex or relationship education classes?

Do you feel it's appropriate? That is following changes to the government guidance for schools in England, which is due to be published tomorrow, including a ban on teaching sex education to those under nine, and also includes plans to ban any children being taught about gender identity if asked teachers will have to be clear that gender

ideology is contested bbc hasn't seen those guidelines just yet let me read a couple of comments that are coming in with younger and younger children seeing pornography online and children starting puberty earlier earlier nine years, is too late to start sex education. Another, I'm so thankful the divisive and unscientific gender ideologies are to be sidelined by schools. It's been harmful to tell kids any man can be a woman or there is no such, forgive me, I just need to click on to show more, no such thing as male and female.

I hope this means we accept all sorts of ways of being a boy or a girl, dress and feel how you like without needing drugs or operations to change sex in inverted commas. That was from Natalie. Keep them coming. 84844 at BBC Women's Hour is how to get in touch with us on social media. Now, the Lionesses win at the Euros 2022 and reaching the final of last year's World Cup

prompted huge developments in women's football in England. We have the Euro qualifiers to enjoy before the tournament next year. And with £30 million worth of funding allocated at grassroots level, as well as significant increases in media coverage, I think my next guest would agree, it's thought that the sport could reach the billion dollar mark this year. It's all very exciting for the next generation of players, right? Well, a new survey has found that more

than half of pitches booked for female football players are then reallocated to a men's team. So this is grassroots level. What does it mean for our future football stars if they don't have somewhere to train? I'm joined by Arsenal forward and Lioness Beth Mead, just

announced in the squad for the Euro qual over the summer which is great news welcome back to women's hour beth and um tell me how are these spaces getting reallocated thanks for having me um yeah it's a it's a bit of a scary start from uh the research that starling bank have put in. But yeah, 56% of girls that have booked pitches have been kicked off by men's teams, which, like you said, the game's going in an incredible direction. Obviously, since the Euros, you know, as a Lioness team, we fought for equal playing time in schools. Obviously, we went to the government for that. And now you think you're starting to break down barriers, but then these barriers reappear.

These young girls feel unsafe going to the pitches after dark. They're getting kicked off by men's and boys' teams. But how is that allowed? I mean, that's the question I had when I saw it. So what? Somebody books the pitch, whatever it's for, a women's team at grassroots level. They're planning on going, I don't know, Wednesday 3pm and instead? Yeah, I mean, directly, I don't know who takes charge of that. I don't know if it's the facilities kicking them off or the men to come on, whether the men just come on and demand the pitch.

I think there's a lot of different tactics being used, should we say, to try and get the young girls and women off the pitch. And like you said, like I said earlier, these girls are scared. You know, you've got grown men stood there telling you to get off the pitch. And what are you going to do? You know, you're not going to sit there and say no and feel unsafe and scared about playing a game of football. And some of the men's teams and people know that.

And at the moment, it's having a massive effect on this next generation in grassroots football. So they might be reallocated. For example, I was reading, say, Friday night, 8, 9 o'clock, something like that, the undesirable time to play football. The time when, yeah, you don't really want to be going out. It could be as late as 9 and 10 o'clock at night and some of these girls maybe can't get there or they feel a little bit too unsafe to travel there at that time.

There's a lot of barriers in the game still but it's moving in such a good direction that you you get very frustrated to hear that these things are still happening and these young girls are meant to be the next generation of us lionesses so we want to give them the best possible chance and support to be able to go out there and do that so what's the solution i mean myself and niger are obviously part of Starling Bank's programme and we've both signed the kick-on manifesto, which highlights the changes that need to happen at this level and the playing fields and the quality and the team benefits and try to get more support for these young girls.

And hopefully Bayou is making people more aware of this, that it can bring these statistics down a little bit more. But again, it's super frustrating. These girls are starting to get, you know, the facilities, but then they're getting thrown out of the facilities. So it's like a lose-lose sometimes. You improve situations to then get more barriers being put in front of you.

Did you ever have that issue? I, when I was younger, I played for a boys team. Oh yes, you did. So I didn't have the choice of being kicked off by the boys team because I played for them. But we played on an open field at Middlesbrough where people could walk the dogs. So you couldn't throw us off that type of pitches. But now the girls have got the facilities. Now they're getting thrown off these pitches.

So you think you've broke one barrier and then a new one arises which is obviously super frustrating um you mentioned there that there has been um some barriers but there is this legacy the lionesses legacy shall we call it that um the government said they were opening pitches across the country, naming them after the Lionesses to celebrate that. How much or how successful do you feel the legacy has been in turning things around? I think we've helped a lot with participation. You know, we've come from, you know, we're an England team. We all come together, but we've all come from different parts of England. And you know there's a picture being opened in whitby where i'm from in north

yorkshire and for young girls over there who know that they could try and be like me and um vice versa for all the other girls and i think it's great that what everything we've put in place it's now making it sustainable and continuing the support and making the next generation feel safe in doing so and not hearing any more of this horrible statistics and stuff that Starling Bank have obviously recently found. So, yeah, I'm happy to be a part of this programme and hopefully we can kick down a few more barriers and keep bringing that legacy on a little bit more.

Because when you were on last you were hoping to speak to the Prime Minister you were hoping to speak to the Education Secretary. You did sign an open letter to Mr Sunak in August 2022 asking them to commit to allowing all girls to play football then that did happen. You had good

progress on that and they've commissioned an independent report as well. What else? What do you want to see next i mean i guess the world is ours sir i think we as a team are still pushing it's not quite there you know myself ellen white and jill went to downing street to make sure that it went over the line all of that stuff um i know it's not happening fully in every every school place where we're at right now so hopefully we can keep pushing that and keep them standards um for making the pathways as best as possible for these young girls to try and become you know the next um alessia russo ella, you know, these players.

Because we're the next generation from the older generation, you know. I get coached by Kelly Smith now, who was my idol. And now we're pushing her legacy. And now it's for the next generation to push our legacy. So, yeah, you're only as good as your last game, as we say in football. So we've got these young ones who we've got outside today with us who look like they're miles better than me at that age already. So it's quite a real thing.

How does that feel though? Because you are, you know, this superstar that people, and it must be so interesting to see that person coming up behind you that you're going to be their icon, their idol. Yeah, it still seems really surreal. I remember the first time I met Kelly, I didn't dare speak to her. Now I joke on a daily basis and have like, you know, banter and mess about and stuff like that.

And, you know, it's exciting to see the talent that's coming through. Obviously, it's worrying for myself and that put me in an early retirement but no it's so nice to see the quality of players and the competitiveness within the game now so it's exciting to see what the future holds for women's football Not a chance of that speaking of you've been announced

as part of the Lionesses squad as I mentioned at the top against of course against France it'll be May 31st right for the Euro 2025 qualifiers how are you feeling about it? Excited double header against France in them they're not the easiest team to play we do have probably the

group of death at the moment for Euro qualifiers so it's going to be a tough one but like you said we've got a very exciting good squad that we've just announced yesterday and we'll be working hard obviously throughout the summer to try and get some big wins and qualify for Euros again You tore

the infamous ACL as has plagued many a woman on the pitch last season what has it been like recovering from that and I believe your partner

also Vivienne Miedemaar tore her ACL at the same time what are the chances? You couldn't write it. I know. You really couldn't write it.

We did it a month apart. I did mine and then she did hers. It wasn't a very mobile household. Yeah, it's a tough injury. Minimum of nine months. It's your main ligament in your knee for balance, which you kind of need in football. Mentally and physically, it's been a gruelling process.

Days in the gym, a long time in the gym, building your strength back up, your muscle strength, your stability, to then learn to run in a straight line again, then be allowed to change direction then you know 10 months later I managed to get my first minutes um so mentally and physically it's been a grueling process but hopefully we're back stronger um now and yeah I've been feeling good so far touch wood um since I've been back that's good uh And a bit of competitive spirit between you, no doubt. Very much so.

She is leaving Arsenal as well, which we know we're not going to speak about contractually on that particular aspect. But no doubt you'll be sad to see her go from Arsenal.

You're going to have to get competitive against her somewhere. I don't know where yet. That's all up. That is all up for play, as they say. But speaking about the ACL, you know, I saw that Emma Samways, who plays for a third tier team, hashtag FC as they're called, she tore her ACL during a match and she had to crowdfund for her surgery. And I thought that was so telling of some of the obstacles that are up against other women right

that that maybe aren't the superstar that you are but trying to get a foot in there yeah I mean obviously I'm lucky in a sense that I have you know very good support and facilities from the club at Arsenal but yeah I did help fund some support for her. Obviously seeing it online and a bit of social media, obviously understandably going through the same injury, I understand how much of a gruelling process it is. Never mind not having the money there to try and even get the surgery to start that rehab process.

So yeah, it was sad to see that. And it's sad to see that there's not always a support there, you know, waiting on the NHS can take over a year. I know a lot of my friends who had the same surgery and it's took a long time. You know, those girls have got asked two weeks later through private. So I tried to help, I tried to make it a little bit more aware for her and put it out there on social media media but it's sad to see that a lot of people still are going through that and her rehab process could take a lot longer than this rehab already takes such a long time so i can understand how frustrating and annoying that would be for her but it is interesting that you are there

as well supporting being a champion for the other women. But me, thanks so much. Come back on again soon. Thank you. You know, Euros 2025. I mean, I don't even want to get into how you played against the Republic of Ireland. We're not going to talk about that. It's going to come up again, no doubt, in another few weeks. But thank you very much for joining us on Women's Hour.

No problem. Thank you. Now, a couple of messages that have been coming in. 84844. This is about sex and relationship education in schools. I'm a relationships and sex education curriculum expert working for a national organisation. We work with hundreds of schools across the country. No schools are doing sex education with undernines.

This is a non-problem. Many primary opt out of sex education altogether and schools rarely teach about sex before year six so age 10 age nine is the earliest i've ever come across sex education taking place the government should be focusing on the youth mental health crisis and not engage in manufacturing culture war issues in education so that's one coming in interesting tying in with our first conversation we had on Women's Hour. I keep hearing gender,

about gender ideology. What is it? Nobody has been able to explain what this is. Apparently contestable ideology. As a transgender woman, I feel I ought to know. I also think my child should know.

And one more. This is from Anita. My son is in year four. His school began teaching relationship education as part of phse in the summer term of year three parents were invited to a meeting in advance and had the option to withdraw their child if they wanted to parents were fully informed about what would be taught and it was taught in a very age appropriate way my child is now age nine and hasn't been taught anything that is not age appropriate

in year three and four it is more about learning about puberty body changes and what a healthy relationship look like looks like this change is not needed and is a gimmick really interesting your thoughts coming in 84844 at bbc woman's hour on social media or indeed you can get in touch on WhatsApp as well. Keep them coming and I will keep reading them as well. Let me move on to my next guest who is, I have to congratulate her first. She is the first woman to, first Mexican I should say, to win a Pulitzer Prize. Christina Rivera Garza, welcome to Woman's Hour. Cristina, can you hear me? Hi, happy to be here.

So wonderful to have you with us. Thank you. Yes, I can. Great. And you won the Pulitzer last week. So congratulations on that. How did you find out? Well, I found out as everybody did, just by looking at the press release.

You're kidding. Through a press release, you found out you were the first ever Mexican to win a Pulitzer Prize. That's correct. Quite surprising. There's a little bit of a delay on the line, so I just want to let our listeners know that. But the Pulitzer that you won was for a memoir all about your sister Liliana, who was sadly murdered in 1990. She was just 20 years of age at that time. No one was ever convicted of the crime, but Liliana's ex-boyfriend was strongly suspected,

but he absconded during the investigation. Your grief, I believe, prevented you from speaking about your sister for decades. But you do, as a writer, rediscover her. And the book is beautifully called Liliana's Invincible Summer. And it's a sister's search for justice. As I mentioned there, 30 years since your sister died, when you started to write this book, what was it at this particular time that you thought, yes, now? Well, there were various factors, of course. On the one hand, I think I was at that point in my own grieving cycle that allowed me to face my own history and the history of my sister for the first time. But on the other hand, and equally important, I think it has taken our societies

all these many years, all these 30 years, to produce a language precise enough, compassionate enough to recount these stories of gender violence from the perspective of women and their communities. There is no surprising, I mean, it's a very well-known fact that feminist mobilizations, women's mobilizations have been on the rise in countries like Mexico and throughout Latin America. And I truly believe that I owe them all the work they've done in taking public spaces and public language and generating all this vocabulary that has allowed me to tell this story from perspectives that are usually not used in this gender the storytelling. Yeah, the storytelling is so different, Christina. It's autobiographical, it's a memoir, but it's also this backdrop of a patriarchal society. It's an investigation. It's getting to know your sister.

It's so many things. I'm actually listening to it, which I find very beautiful as well, listening to the language that you use. But your sister's name was not said for so many years. Tell me a little bit about that and how it was within your family. Well, grieving processes related to loved ones that we've lost to violence are very complicated affairs. We went through a typical catch-22, damn if you mention her, damn if you don't,

since the only narrative available to us to tell this story was a pervasive dominant narrative, which we might as well call the passionate crime narrative, which implicitly blames the victim, blames women, and exonerates the perpetrators. So talking about her always felt as, that we were harming her and harming us at the same time. For that reason, that's when I say

that when we finally had this alternative vocabulary and the audience willing to listen to alternative stories of gender violence that opened up the possibility to start writing this book in the shape that it finally took. Yeah, I was struck with the sentence you said, that grief can become a forced silencing. It is. That is one of the major challenges in grieving for women that we've lost the femicide. Society insists on keeping us quiet.

This hasn't been a matter of public concern in a long, long time. I think things have changed slowly but surely, and it has become, as we well know, femicides around the world have been described as a silent epidemic. So we need to talk more about that, articulate these stories in ways that honour women's experiences. And femicide has been in law in Mexico, I think since 2012. And this is when somebody is killed due to the fact of being a woman that that is, we could almost think of it as a hate crime but directed towards a woman in that way but the obstacles that you came up against when trying to investigate who would be the killer who was the killer of your sister um to say frustrating really is an understatement

it was like these brick walls basically that you were hitting up against. But I want to turn to the boxes that were stored at your parents' house that belonged to your sister. You went there, I suppose, to begin this journey of writing. Tell us what you found. Well, you know, I had tried to write this book before on several occasions, and I had failed utterly, mostly because I believe I was working within the realm of fiction. When I, in 2019, went back home looking for Liliana's belongings. I had a very humble objective in mind. I needed information in order to open up the case again.

And what I came across was this very rich archive of documents and letters and notes and drawings that my sister had preserved so lovingly in something that I'm now describing as an effective archive. Touching these documents, reading my sister's words, feeling her so materially close to me at that point really marked the true beginning of the book. I was set out not only to tell the story of a femicide, but mostly I wanted readers to experience that physical material closeness to Liliana. I wanted them to miss her as much as I've been doing it and my family for all these many years. I truly believe that something happened, something akin to

a little revolution takes place when we all together participate in the production of collective memory. And that's where I think writing could be a key factor as well. And I want to ask you about the language we have to describe behavior in men that is concerning, but perhaps not directly violent. What have you concluded about that in your sister's case through reading through these papers and also talking to her friends? Well, my sister was a fairly vivacious woman, intelligent, bright, with a wonderful sense of humor. A woman like many, like many young women ready to devour the world, so to speak. And yet she didn't have that language available to her, the language that might help her to first identify and then protect herself

against increasing signs of intimate partner violence. What I saw, what I read here in her diaries and notes was precisely among many other things, the very intense experience that she had had in Mexico City uncovering her freedom, but at the same time, a way of eluding and almost an incapability of truly recognizing a danger that was surrounding her that she was unable to pinpoint at that time. So you felt she didn't have the words to be able to express it?

Like she says in some of it that he was short-tempered, aggressive, jealous, but maybe not a bad man. In many cases of domestic violence and intimate paranoid terrorism, women are asked for a leap, a cognitive leap in interpreting what is going on. On the one hand, you have men swearing that they love you greatly and to death, literally. And on the other hand, you are witnessing a series of behaviors that are very difficult to understand in the context of this overpowering language of romantic love.

I think this is another challenge and something that contemporary feminist movements have been critically working and revising, of course. There are so many twists and turns in this story, and I know I have limited time with you, but the man you believe was responsible for her murder, her ex-boyfriend, Angel Gonzalez Ramos, disappeared while being investigated by the police at that time. People read your book. They sent you tips. One even sent you what was a digital file of what they believed was this man's funeral,

that he died in 2020. But you're sceptical. Well, yes, indeed. There is an arrest warrant against Ángel González Ramos, one that is still valid to this day. Well, we know, well where we've been able to investigate because as many Mexican families, we have been forced to conduct and finance our own investigations.

What we came up with, what we believe is that he ran away. They he lived in Southern California for a number of years, perhaps under an alias. And I conducted also some research about that. But the Mexican authorities, which, by the way, they have the results of all our investigations. They are waiting on their desks. The Mexican authorities are the ones who have to confirm and really confirm that this Angel Gonzalo Ramos is or was the person

that I got this tip about who lived and died in Southern California. But you don't know. My heart tells me that this is a true possibility, but I have to conduct myself very cautiously here. And I really believe that the Mexican authorities, judicial authorities, have to come through and do their work. Since your book came out in Mexico, that was 2021, Liliana's name and image has appeared on placards and murals at demonstrations against gender violence. This was a name that was not mentioned in your family for so many years. How does it feel when you see that, that she is a public figure now? Now she is the subject, obviously, of a Pulitzer Prize winning book.

What a contrast. It is a huge contrast. And Liliana, the way in which readers, especially younger readers, have embraced Liliana's story tells us a lot about issues of violence and gender violence, not only in Mexico, but worldwide. into public discussions, we are at the same time articulating concerns and struggles and demands for justice, not only for Liliana, but for all women who have been victims of femicide, both in Mexico and worldwide. Cristina Rivera Garza, who has written Liliana's Invincible Summer and just won a Pulitzer Prize last week. Thanks so much for joining us on Woman's Hour.

I want to read some of your messages that have come in. This is an email from Christine. She says, I was shocked and horrified that the school were proposing to show my four-year-old great-nephew a jolly little dinosaur cartoon about keeping other people's hands out or off my pants at four? Another one that has come in. I'm also a parent of primary-aged children. hands out or off my pants at four question mark. Another one that has come in.

I'm also a parent of primary age children. They both know how sexual reproduction works and this hasn't traumatised or sexualised them. Kids learn how it works and then they go back to their books and their Lego. It's not an indecent topic. It's just a matter of biological fact. And another one coming in, lots of them coming in. Some of your commentators don't seem to have read what the curriculum actually teaches, instead reading

deliberate misinterpretations of what it's designed to cause a moral panic and distract from other news. Genuine parents can just ask their school for the contents of the lessons. Ours was more than happy to share what they wanted to teach our kids and it was all common sense information

to keep our children safe. So 84844 if you want to get in touch with Women's Hour on that topic. We may pick it up again tomorrow. The information of the guidelines will be published. Now, something different. For centuries, choral music was sung by choirs

made up of men and boys performing music by male composers. But the role of women in choral music has changed. Girls as well as boys now sing in cathedral choirs and more music by women is being commissioned and performed to discuss how women's voices are becoming more prominent and girls. I'm joined by Cecilia MacDowell, one of the UK's leading composers of choral music in studio with us.

Good morning. Good morning. And also by Carys Jones, who was the first woman to be appointed as a chorister at St Paul's Cathedral in its 1,000-year history. One of Cecilia's compositions, the anthem God is Light,

was performed last week at St Paul's Cathedral as part of the Clergy Support Trust Festival. How beautiful. You are kind. Oh, just, it brings us to another space, I think, right now on Woman's Hour. How was it like? Well, it's wonderful to hear. It's so beautifully sung by the St Paul's Cathedral Choir,

conducted by Andrew Carwood. And the service itself was very special. So it's a great privilege to have one's work performed in that context. How have things changed, Cecilia, since you started out? Well, it is very interesting because I really started composing seriously about 20 years ago. And at that time, I wasn't thinking at all about being a woman composer, but much more about the intention of writing music that I hope people would commission me for and sing. But during that time, it has shifted enormously. One of the things that I always hope is that my music will be performed not because I'm a woman, but because somebody is interested in the music and wants to perform it.

That's really interesting that you didn't think about, I'm a woman in this field. I didn't. And I don't know whether it would have made any difference if I had. Just the determination to do it at a fairly late stage in my life. What was it that, you say a late stage in your life? What was the catalyst there? What changed? I think what well it wasn't so much anything changed but rather that I had always been composing in a sort of unserious way and just deciding that now is the time. I'm going to get serious. Yes exactly. Thank you Cecilia. Let us bring in Carys. Carys, welcome to Woman's Hour. Lovely to have you with us. The first woman to be appointed as a chorister

at St Paul's Cathedral. We're talking about breaking down barriers of a thousand years that have held. It's quite the ceiling, isn't it? I'm glad that I left it intact in a real sense though but you did definitely break through um tell us a little bit about your path then from being a young girl to to reaching these dizzying heights well I sang at school um but not very seriously I mean I sang in primary school um I uh at secondary school I gradually became more and more interested in singing and I have to be honest and say that a lot of that was because I figured out that it was um I was likely to do better at it than I was at the piano which required more practice so um I was very busy with my academic work. But really, I didn't have any thoughts of being a singer.

I went on to study history at Cambridge and I was aiming for the civil service and thoughts in my head of somehow saving the world and those sorts of things. But my music was always with me and I was lucky enough to get a choral scholarship at Cambridge, at Caius College. And the sort of singing in choirs in churches has sort of never really left me from that point, really,

even though my path to being a freelance full time musician was a little more complicated. And entering the hallowed ground of St Paul's Cathedral and their choir, what was that like? It was astonishing. I mean, when I was appointed in 2017, it was something of a sort of seven days wonder. But I also had a four-month-old baby when I started the job. My second child was born actually after the interview process. So like I think most new parents would say, you know, everything was kind of a blur, although at St Paul's it's a very, very beautiful blur. But I have never walked into that building

and not felt keenly how honoured and lucky I am to be able to to be able to sing there and to be able to to reach so many people with music um every day but your story is a unique one at those upper echelons are there more girls admitted to cathedral choirs now um it used to be so the big change really is over the last, you know, few decades really is in the increasing numbers of girl choristers in our cathedral churches. Parish churches, of course, have long been better at this than the big cathedral churches. But that's one of the really exciting things that, you know know it was so lovely to hear Beth Mead talking about watching the next generation come through snapping at her heels I

feel exactly the same way about our amazing girl choristers um and I can't wait for them to be snapping at mine you know I just had a quick glance over at our messages coming in and this is one from Richard I have to throw this to you Car Carys. As an ex-choir boy myself, I'm not happy to hear of more girls in choirs. There's a purity that gets lost or at least diluted when the choir has females of any register in it. Well, I've heard that one a time or two. Cecilia wants to get in here. Go on.

Well, I find that really interesting because I don't know when this happened, but the Director of Music of St Mary's Edinburgh, St Mary's Cathedral Edinburgh, carried out a blind test with directors of music across the country. And he had girls and boys behind a screen. And apparently they had to write down whether they were boys or girls. And apparently there were a lot of errors. You're nodding your head there, Carys. What's it all about?

Well, I think it's an interesting thing. I think the other thing other than that study, which is well known, I think the other thing to bear in mind is that largely girl choristers haven't had the benefit of the training that some of the boy choristers that I believe that listener may be referring to and also haven't had the opportunity to sing in our amazing cathedral buildings and I think what's far more what has a far more impact on a child's sound is the building they sing in and of course at St Paul's we have this amazing grand echo and also the training that they receive which is which is completely different from person to person of course um

and what's exciting about this new chapter particularly for us at St Paul's is giving girls the opportunity to benefit from that amazing uh musical training here's another one that came in uh there's still some way to go for girls as choristers. My own daughter is four hours away from home because at her age, she can't sing in the cathedral in her home county. She's questioned why when we've had female prime ministers and a queen as head of the Church of England, it's not possible to sing in her home cathedral. The funding available for girl choristers lacks parity too.

Some charitable trusts only support the tuition boarding fees for boy choristers. So eyebrows are raised there by Carys. But that is one side, so the singing. And I want to come back, you're still the only woman in St Paul's Cathedral Choir, as I understand it, Carys, and we'll ask why that is.

But Cecilia, on your side, last year the Dunn Women in Music Report found that only 7.7% of scheduled works were composed by women. That includes orchestras, repertoire, not choral music. But it also suggests there's a really long way to go. I think I think there is some way to go that that that I would agree with that. There was a statistic, wasn't there, recently, of 78% male composers and 14% women composers. And I'd be quite interested to know how the statistic was formed, whether it was including dead male composers.

Yes, there's quite a lot of those. Yes. When you're up against Barkham, Moe Smart and whatnot. That's true. I mean, I was just quite interested to look back to the beginning of this year at the BBC Choral Evensong. There have been 20, and I thought it'd be quite interesting to see how many of those include works by women. And out of the 20, there are 12.

12 of the BBC Choral Evensong include not just one work by a woman composer, but sometimes two. I mean, for example, this afternoon, Exeter Cathedral are broadcasting. They have a work by Cheryl Frances Hode and also an organ work that's going to be played by a piece by me as well. Excellent. So I think certainly in the choral world, I think there is quite a generous interest. One of the things I feel that does need to be acknowledged is the interest and support and encouragement from directors of music, of cathedrals, churches, choirs,

and, you know, just to name Andrew Carwood from St. Paul's Cathedral, Andrew Eris at St. Martin in the Fields who is very supportive he has devised a composer in residency for Lucy Walker a young composer so I think

there is so much I know Caris you had a very welcoming environment for you as you stepped into St. Paul's by your co-choristers. But you are still the only woman. Very briefly, why? Oh, gosh, that's a complicated question. But very briefly, I think women have not always benefited from that chorister training that we're now saying is available to so much more, and that's been a factor. But also, these adult salary positions don't come up very often. They're, you know, a salary in music is as rare as hen's teeth, and people tend to hang on to

these jobs once they have them. And of course, because we have children singing the highest line of music, there are only really at any one time a small number of of jobs that might be available to women um so um uh you know i hate to say it but until some of my lovely colleagues move on i may be the only woman for a little while yet let's let caris jones have the last word cecilia mcdowell thanks to you as well and thanks so much for joining me on woman's hour you've got anita tomorrow that's all for today's Woman's Hour. Join us again next time. Look at this. I found a secret room and it's behind a trap door.

We're looking for someone who controls one of the largest gangs of people smugglers. He calls himself Scorpion. The top one? Impossible you can't find them. His gang has made millions from people coming to the UK in small boats. This feels so cold. So cold, I want to die. Finding him won't be easy, and it will be dangerous.

Oh, we need to get out of here. So, get in the car. I'm Sue Mitchell, and this is Intrigue, to catch a scorpion from BBC Radio 4. Listen on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Treleaven, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started, like, warning everybody.

Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more 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.

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